SLOT.IT PRESS RELEASE, For all you bored tuners..... Options

[Swissracer]

Slot.it to release new 'offset' technology

Before the end of June, Slot.it will introduce to the market a new
technology (motor mounts and crowns). This will enable you to displace the
motor shaft with regards to the rear axle, and in particular to position
the rear axle up to 1mm higher than the motor shaft for inline configuration.
Until now, for inline cars, the shaft of the motor and the rear axle had
to be kept at the same height, due to the design of the crowns.
With the advent of larger diameter wheels, which are common nowadays on
racing cars, keeping the motor flush with the bottom of the chassis
causes the rear ground clearance to become too high, adversely effecting
the handling, and, on the other side, the wheel arch remains far away
from the wheel. One possible solution would be to raise the motor from
the bottom of the chassis, but this has the drawback or raising the
center of gravity. The new 'offset' motor mounts and crowns mantains the
motor in its lowest position, and on the other hand, places the large
diameter rear wheel in the proper position. Obviously, the effect of
these parts when used on a small diameter wheel will be to have a
reduced ground clearance.
The new motor mount is NOT compatible with the existing inline crowns
and can only be used with the new inline crowns (which will be named
SIGOxx-yy where XX= number of crowns and yy will either be Al or Bx) and
the new crowns are NOT compatible with any of the existing motor mounts.
The first motor mount to be released will be the one for the 'boxer/NC'
type of motors (SICH22), followed by the other inline motor mounts. The first crown will feature 26 teeth (SIGO26-Bz and SIGO26-Al).
(Note: pricing will be the same of current equivalent parts)

[GRAH1]

This is quite an old idea but a good one non the less I think it was K+B who first marketed it in the 60s (PDL will correct me if Im wrong ) also cahoza in the 90s did something similar. Great to see these ideas coming round again

[Dennis David]

PDL will correct you if you're right.

I have some Sonic gears that are offset ... would be nice if the mounts worked for those. I won't hold my breadth though.

[LMP]

Good stuff

[cheater]

The term used for this type of gearing, where the axis if the pinion shaft does not intersect the crown or ring gear axis, is hypoid gears.

And it is quite an old idea, being first introduced in full-size cars in 1926 by the Packard Motor Company, to allow for lower driveshafts and flatter floors.

Philippe will no doubt know who made this type of gearing for slot cars in the 60s. I recall there were several companies who sold them.

[Maltese]

Interesting. No one would happen to have a picture of this animal, would they?

-M

Ah. There's one. Am I the only "unscientist"?

Hypoid Gear Example

[astro]

great one from slot-it! I always wondered why people put piddling little wheels on their racers, when big/scale wheels would have more grip

Maybe we need these in 1/32 next...

[lowrider]

Larger wheels will have more mass but possibly give a larger rubber footprint on the track.
The larger diameter will also be a big factor in choice of gear ratios.
It may be worth a try-out when more gears become available.
Regards,
Lowrider.

[Slot.it]

Hi.
They are not really hypoid gears as the pinion is a standard 'straight' tooth pinion. Slot.itpoid, maybe? :-)

Best regards
Maurizio

[PeteN]

A hypoid is an offset spiral bevel gear.

[dgersh]

On hypoid gears, at least for slot cars, it's only the crown gear that's offset - the pinion is a standard model.

The first commercial slot car to offer this was the MPC Lancia-Ferrari - and I know, because I had one! And never could get those gears to mesh right!

A couple other companies offered hypoid gears as well: MDC (Model Die Casting) first offered the gears and an offset bracket for Mabuchi motors, and then kits or semi-built up cars, mainly the Lotus 30 and Ford GT from what I can remember offhand. Both MPC and MDC used cast metal crown gears.

After that came Rannalli, which came out with about 6 different chassis configurations in late 65 and early 66, including sports cars with hypoid gears.

It's worth mentioning that the winner at the Bordeaux vintage race this year was Bruno Novarese, with a beautifully done Cobra that finished first in Concours and first in the race, and it had a modified MDC chassis with a Mura motor. It really fit the purpose too, giving him scale wheels but still a very low center of gravity.

But be warned that, at least at the time, these things were very fiddly to get to mesh right. Bruno, however, really knows how to set up any kind of slot car; one of his Italian friends told me that only Bruno was able to get that thing to work so well!

Plus ça change....
Don

PS: Tradeship, Strombecker and a few other companies also made hypoid bevel gears - pretty easy to find on ebay if you want to take a crack at it!

[astro]

so...

i can replace my 956 motor mounts with this new one, and will need the new crown gear for the meshing. Will I also need new bigger wheels? Will bigger wheels be more in scale than the current ones?

or do I use the existing wheels? I think they won't reach the track if they are raised by 1 mm...