Put an end to Overload troubles!, Dont try this without adult supervision Options

[drummer]

Firstly let me apologise for sort of Quoting or repeating myself, but the motivating discussion that returned this news occured half-way through another thread and I thought this news needed to be a topic starter.
......

After finally biting the bullet (I'd come to the conclusion a week ago that this needed to be explored) and reconnecting our 3 Lane Changes to an external independent source rather then via the track power I can very happily report we ran;

4 Cars @ 14.5 (!) NO OVERLOADS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ive never done better than 3 @ 13.5v before this, and you know what -- we reckon it'll run 6 cars effortlessly! We used to experience overloads with 2 cars running anything in excess of 13.5v (!).

Tonight we raced solidly for over a hour (or was it two?) whilst doing our best to hit lane changes simultaneously and invoke an Overload (this seemed to be the cause of previous troubles... ).

Not a single sausage!

For me - the saga is finally over - SSD ROX!!
I love it (why the hell they just didnt put another input and output into the power base and give you 2 transformers...! )

Hopefully a lot of you can now get some sleep (and/or some racing).

(!) I am currently using standard SSD Power pack (Not AC).

Simply remove cover from the base from the sensor track and lift the board carefully to expose the wires. Disconnect these from the track and send them off to your external circuit.

ie: To these I soldered female mini-jack sockets(3.5 mm mono). I then made some cables that connected by this mini-jack connection to a box that also houses a female socket for the power feed.

Neat and easily broken down.

We are racing now at the speeds we are used to with analogue, but of course, with all the extras of digital.
I can't say this loudly enough -- the SSD system now operates flawlessly.
Unbelievable, fabulous, cookin!, bitching, superlative etc etc.

enjoy


PICTURE TUTORIAL NOW HERE *

*Pics courtesy of tvwino, thanks Mike!

[astro]

work like this deserves a thread of its own! Big news and great research drummer

any chance of some pics?

A big question is whether the LCs can work on AC power. It seems logical that they would since the power they usually get from the rails is AC. However, it is AC square waves, and maybe if someone with sufficient technical knowledge to look at the circuit board could advise...

The reason it would be great for them to work on AC is that anyone converting from analogue scalex sport to SSD will have one or more AC wall warts lying around spare! Of course, this would just be a very thin layer of icing on the cake you have baked!

[Swissracer]

EXCELLENT news!

well done that man. Can I also ask you supply pics? maybe even (if you dont mind) a full 'how to'? I am sure it will go down just great!

Once again this is a great step forward, maybe you should pass this info onto Hornby.

Looks like 6 car races on Mugello is now on the cards, still leaving two lanes for marshall and returns of crashed cars should we wish!

Now, someone needs to look into an aftermarket timing system I wonder if an exisitng one could be adapted? Would the Carrera aftermarket one work?

[darainbow]

Drummer-
Congratulations. It sounds like you have finally reached an acceptable level of performance with SSD. Please experiment and let me know what the maximum voltage is. I will update the comparison when that in formation is known.

Edited, see THIS post.

This post has been edited by Swissracer: 28 Jan 2005, 18:09

[SWoRd]

Hi Drummer

I can't say this loudly enough -- the SSD system now operates flawlessly.

Excellent work ...

[drummer]

Astro. -- havent tried the AC box, but they sell the SSD DC tranformer separately - so that would be easiest solution for most.

Having got this far without any troubles I think I'll elect to leave that experiment to someone else.

[tvwino]

4 Cars @ 14.5 (!) NO OVERLOADS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For me - the saga is finally over - SSD ROX!!

We are racing now at the speeds we are used to with analogue, but of course, with all the extras of digital.
I can't say this loudly enough -- the SSD system now operates flawlessly.
Unbelievable, fabulous, cookin!, bitching, superlative etc etc.

enjoy
     

Drummer,
you're a star - I'm off to DSE this afternoon to buy 'STUFF' to make the changes to mine!!
Brilliant work.
cheers
Mike

[Nep72]

Congratulations!

So in brief we can now say that feeding LCs with a different PS makes system stable.

Thanks for sharing.

[Eno Dog]

That's terrific news Drummer!

Could you publish some pictures of what you did so we can have a butchers please? I'm a bit of a nong when it comes to electronics so need nice clear pictures!

[drummer]

Hi all - thanks for the warm praise - although when you make the mods to the sensor track sections you'll hardly think it takes a genius...

I will post pics asap.

But simply;
remove 5 screws from bottom of sensor piece.
gently lift the chip upwards from the center outwards.
reveals 2 solder joins to be disconnected.
follow the red and black for ( + - )
and connect to your new circuit.

[bswan72]

Hi all - thanks for the warm paise - although when you make the mods to the sensor track sections you'll hardly think it takes a genius...

I will post pics asap.

But simply;
remove 5 screws from bottom of sensor piece.
gently lift the chip upwards from the center outwards.
reveals 2 solder joins to idsconnect.
follow the red and black for ( + - )
and connect to your new circuit.

Does anyone have any insight as to why the current demands are higher with the SSD Lane changers? I was checking the Lane Changers on my Carrera PRO-X track with an amp meter and you can hardly see a jump in amps. I did notice that there is a capacitor on the PRO-X LC circuit board. Could this store the power for the LC and keep from taking power from the track? I wonder if even an easier fix for the SSD LCs would be to add a capacitor across the + and - leads.

Brian

[drummer]

Hi Brian, we think its to do with the weight of the moving part. The capacitor idea was one we discussed as an alternative, but I was more comfortable doing the easy thing and personally am attracted to the idea of the cars having their own CLEAN power feed.

Will be interesting to hear the results should you go down that path.

For whats its worth, I came across info on a german website suggesting similar problems and solutions for Carrera.

[astro]

I agree with bswan that it is a puzzle. Although the scalextric flipper is heavier, the carrera solenoid has to work against a strong return spring, so also needs to be quite powerful.

I guess the two companies picked quite different sloenoid components, and perhaps they had their reasons

[Tropi]

In the model rail world, it is very common practice to enhance inadequate, low amperage power supplies that operate the solenoids for the point switching by utilising a transistorised booster that incorporates a large capacitor in order to provide adequate power for positive switching. This becomes even more important when more than one switching operation is required, either simultaneously or in quick succession. This boosting is usually found advantageous EVEN when the solenoid power supply is exclusively for that purpose and NOT for powering the track.
So it all makes sense - good work.
(Which is more than my post did before I re-edited it!)

And an afterthought - model railways almost exclusively use 16 volt AC for the solenoid actuation.

Anyone know the actual current requirements for the solenoids under discussion?

[Iain]

After finally biting the bullet (I'd come to the conclusion a week ago that this needed to be explored) and reconnecting our 3 Lane Changes to an external independent source rather then via the track power I can very happily report we ran;

4 Cars @ 14.5 (!) NO OVERLOADS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well Done Drummer.
I was about to go down the same route as yourself a couple of weeks ago, after my second SSD power supply didn't fix the problem, but i found another thing that seems to have stopped it dead as well. 3 cars, 4 LCs total of 12+ hours of use with no overloads (except when re-slotting).

I bought two packs of Classic-sport conversion straights. - that's all.
Yup - i more tripled the length of my track, and haven't had a single LC induced overload since.
I expected fewer, but not none. Statistics are evil.

The separate PS solution is however much better and I'm sure will prove more reliable in the long term.

When I have time I will still do this to my own LCs

I'm glad to hear there were no problems with feeding the LC sensors with DC.

Time to get working on wireless controllers now!
The wires get tangled with 2 controllers, with three it's worse, 6 will be chaos.