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Semi-permanent Carrera Track

17K views 35 replies 8 participants last post by  EvadingGrid 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
Vacation time means slot car time and this year I decided to go with a Carrera semi-permanent set up. The idea is to build a track for some reoccuring friendly racing with buddies in the garage. The set up will be quite permanent, but I want the option to take it down or move it if needed.

I will be running Carrera Digital 132 mixed with Slot.it oXigen and switch a bit between them now and then and also probably run a hybrid. For starters I will get the Carrera native setup up and running.

I do not expect to be more then maybe 6-8 people racing at the same time.

I started out with a rough plan in TrackPower and then built the track for testing and tweaking and came up with this layout.



The layout is roughly 240 x 360 cm and each "lane" is roughly 14,5 meters.

The placement and types of lane changers are just a mockup for now and will be tweaked once I get the track up and running (Suggestions on where to place them is very much appreciated.

(Will swap the topic of this thread when I come up with a name of the track!)

Regards,
Mikael
 
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#2 · (Edited by Moderator)
I have cheated a bit and already built some tables for the track to rest upon. I´ve been using it since x-mas for temporarily layouts. The tables are very simple but flexible and sturdy.



The tables are on wheels so I can move them around in the garage. Each table is roughly 244 x 122 cm and 80 cm in height. Put 3 of them together and you have a space to build on that looks like this.



Sorry about the bad picture quality. I still had not put up any good lights in the garage when I took these pics.
 
#4 ·
Thank you @Tony.A. It´s difficult to get a good mix of corners with Carrera on small layouts since the larger radiuses are gigantic. I think the R4 from Carrera is 2 meters in diameter.
But I did my best to mix things up a bit with some R2:s at least.
 
#6 ·
QUOTE (MikeySlotCars @ 17 Jul 2015, 18:53) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Can't see sh*t!

Why don't use .JPEG files like the rest of the world instead of .TPC files


The pictures should show up without you having to click on them. The link to the TPC file is for a slot car track designer software called TrackPower that uses TPC files.

So why do you try to watch TPC files as pictures?!
 
#7 ·
Mikey, I don't think we need that sort of language on here! Let's try and help each other instead of being rude.

Mikael, might be easier to use the camera icon to save the layout as a jpg, that way people without TrackPower can still see the track, especially those of use who use phones or tablets a lot of the time.
 
#10 ·
It has a fair resemblance with Fishydaily's track. It might be a bit complicated to reach a car that deslots in the centre of the table.
I am interested to the oxigen hybrid approach here: is the oxigen chip able to activate the lane changers in carrera?
 
#11 · (Edited by Moderator)
QUOTE (Wraith @ 18 Jul 2015, 12:39) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Try putting the pictures on photobucket or Flickr

I agree , although I do not know about Flickr , I do use Photobucket I use all the time it's working great & it's free (2 Gb space)

Tip: just resize your pics & save it in JPEG files before you upload it to Photobucket or any other photo hosting ,
this way you pics/files will be smaller & you will be able to have more pics into your free account , I got 100+ pics & I'm only using 1% of my space

Mikey
 
#13 ·
QUOTE (GRUNZ @ 17 Jul 2015, 21:58) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>It has a fair resemblance with Fishydaily's track. It might be a bit complicated to reach a car that deslots in the centre of the table.
I am interested to the oxigen hybrid approach here: is the oxigen chip able to activate the lane changers in carrera?

I do not know this Fishydaily, but I´m sure that any layout I´ve ever come up with have been built by someone else already There is just so much you can do on a couple of boards in a garage.
The only thing I had in mind when I started was that this time I wanted to keep it simple, clean and a bit "old school".

We have been racing for a while on the same table setup with temporarilly tracks and it has worked, a bit hard to reach in some places as you pointed out, but most times it works out great and in the worse case scenarios, every slotcar racers favorite fetch tool is used.



oXigen have a Carrera digital "compatible" mode where it can trigger the lane changers on a Carrera track, but it does require that you put in a controller in the last slot of the Control Unit with the lane change button always pressed. The oXigen cars are also never listens to the Carrera CU, but lane changers work and time keeping works with Id 1-6. I would say that mixing both systems on the same track is only for having fun but running oXigen cars on a Carrera track with Oxigen timekeeping works great.
 
#14 · (Edited by Moderator)
Thank you @Savage for helping me to clean up my misstakes with the posted pictures. Lession learned, do not use OneDrive for pictures on SlotForum.
Going to put these pics on photobucket and resize them to 800 width as suggested. Thank you @MikeySlotCars and @Wraith for your suggestions. I might know how to deploy 1000 PCs automatically, but I do lack experience with posting pictures on forums.


Looking out into the garage, not much seems changed now but I did spend yesterday moving things around and building 3 simple boxes to put the track on. The boxes is built with 2x3" studs and some cheap plywood boards that I´ve used on temporarilly setups before.


Backside.


Frontside.

The idea is to give a sturdy enough base so that the track can actually be broken down in 3 pieces and moved and also give a bit of room to hide power units and what not under the track. The construction is light enough for me to lift now by myself, so I imagine that two people will lift one part easilly when the track and what ever else is mounted on them. I still have not decided on how to attach the boxes together but since the track will not be moved very oftenly, I imagine that simple nuts and bolts will do fine. Will ponder on it a bit in the garage today.
 
#16 ·
I have my carrera track semi permanet. So it can be taken indoors for maintence. I used the black track clips, to bind sections together. Like a corner will be a section, and I put straights together as say 3 or 4 straights as one piece. So my 60 feet of track can be taken apart as 12 big pieces. I use the newer red track clips to join the big sections. I also try have a power feed tap for each large section.

Only one tiny little thing puzzles me about your design, and that is one of the lane changers - is it on a flat and level raised section ?

I ask because I had fun and games getting the gradients right, and then playing around putting in short straights. I ended up using the tiny straights to ease and smooth gradients. It might not effect you, difficult to see from photos.

Anyway the track plan looks fine, and I think the semi permanet design is a smart move. Thanks for posting the photos and sharing with the forum. I learn so much from people on here. I love the ideas, suggestions and help we get on the fo

rum. There are some really nice people on here.

Looking forward to watching your circuit progress and grow.
 
#17 ·
QUOTE (EvadingGrid @ 19 Jul 2015, 12:31) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Only one tiny little thing puzzles me about your design, and that is one of the lane changers - is it on a flat and level raised section ?

Yeah, that did not work out very well.
It has been removed now already. The lane changers will have to be tweaked as I start to race on the track. Since the track is only ~14,5 meters long, I think I can get away with having quite a few lane changers.

I use the red clips for all track pieces in every every free place there is, so good tip there about leaving a few pieces alone. That should help disassembly a lot when I finally attach the track to the boards.
 
#18 ·
The rough parts with assembly is now done. The "boxes" are up on the tables. I layed out some sound dampening foam that is usually used under floors under the entire track to help cut out at least a bit of the noice. I´ll cut it into shape later on and either glue or staple it down to the boards.

The track is mostly assembled and I hooked up the power and put some ghost cars on it to check the conductivity. Everything worked out great as usual with Carrera track. Now that I´ve seen the "light", I honestly wonder how Scalextric managed to screw up conductivity so badly on their tracks. I´ve had absolutly zero issues since I started using Carrera and with Scalextric I was chasing problems every time I built a new track.

Here is where I´m at now.



Slow ghost car lap with the mobile cam.
Video
 
#20 ·
I disagree... Carrera needs power taps as well. Maybe not as much as Scalextric, but it's not so much better that you can get away without them if you want consistent power around the whole track. With my brand new, never even out of the box, let alone assembled, Carrera track, I could easily feel the lower power at the half-way point around the track. Anyway...

The layout looks great! Although it's primarily R1 turns, it looks like a lot of fun. I wonder if you might be able to stretch the main straight out a bit? I downloaded your TPC file, and you can put two 1/3 straights between the two R1/30 just above the lane changer on the main straight. Then, put two 1/4 straight before the lane changer, and the track almost matches up perfectly (always helpful with Carrera track which isn't nearly as forgiving as Scalextric). Also, I would put the CU parallel to the pit lane, so that the pit can have another straight in length to make it easier to stop a car inside the pit, or even stop a couple cars in there. I can post a pic of the changes I made if you want.
 
#21 ·
The track looks great. Without going into the comparison between the two, I have to say that so far my experience with scalextric track has been without any big issues.
At the beginning I had some problem with the cars staggering when going over the XLCs: but that was due to me being not careful with the Inox treatment.

Now I have a semi-permanent 17m track with a couple of power taps and never had any issue for the last 7 months or so (in which time the track layout has been changed 3 times and I am about to change another time). In the 1 year I have owned the track pieces I have changed at least 20 times the layout.
 
#22 ·
QUOTE (MrFlippant @ 19 Jul 2015, 23:31) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>The layout looks great! Although it's primarily R1 turns, it looks like a lot of fun. I wonder if you might be able to stretch the main straight out a bit? I downloaded your TPC file, and you can put two 1/3 straights between the two R1/30 just above the lane changer on the main straight. Then, put two 1/4 straight before the lane changer, and the track almost matches up perfectly (always helpful with Carrera track which isn't nearly as forgiving as Scalextric). Also, I would put the CU parallel to the pit lane, so that the pit can have another straight in length to make it easier to stop a car inside the pit, or even stop a couple cars in there. I can post a pic of the changes I made if you want.

Ooops, I didn´t mean to start a fanboy war!
And I dare not go so far as to say that Carrera do not need power taps, I´m sure it depending on how large the track is and possible the conditions of the track itself. But it´s very clear to me that there is less problems with Carrera then with Scalextric. I have already put on the "ToDo list" to put in powertaps, look into spicing up the amps a bit to allow for some more cars and stronger motors and also to look into powering the flippers on a secondary power supply. The power unit that ships with Carrera is rated at 14.8v and 3,5 Amp. It might be fine for running 6 stock Carrera cars, but I doubt it will keep up with NSR/Slot.it engines, especially when one adds a few more cars then the system was built for.

Actually, if anyone have any links to someone doing some PowerModding of the CU 30352, please let me know? I have no idea what the durn thing can handle without burning up.

Good advice as always with the track @MrFlippant. I´ll move the CU into the pit-lane, I tried it when I put the track together now but realized that it´s the only track piece I have with power outlets on it where I can hook up the chargers for the speed controllers. Bummer....
I´ll look into extending the straight. I think I have some 1/3s, a bit doubtful about the 1/4, but it´s almost time to put in yet another order at the slot car shop so I´ll be sure to add them and try it out. Feel free to draw them in and post it? Always easier to see a pic.

By the way, thanx for the tip about the SmartRace App @MrFlippant, it extended the Carrera features perfectly all the way to the mobile device. Not a finished RMS system, but clean and simple and replaces the need for the driver stations and the lapcounter. Great!
 
#23 · (Edited by Moderator)
Power tap plans, excellent.


CU powering the controller chargers... you can pull the power adapters out of that piece and put them elsewhere. They're just wired to the rails on that side of the track piece. Not hard to move to another piece as long as it has the slots for borders to connect to. I'll probably have to do that as well, when I get a pit lane kit.

SmartRace is great not only because it's already better than the Carrera Race App (think of an acronym for that ;-), but also because it's developed by a passionate D132 racer, like Bruce with his PC software. I expect it will continue to improve. I posted a long list of things that could be improved, and the dev fixed them ALL in a matter of days. Don't be afraid to let him know what you'd like to see in that app.


Here's my version of your track:
 
#24 ·
QUOTE (MrFlippant @ 20 Jul 2015, 05:35) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Power tap plans, excellent.


Geek!


QUOTE (MrFlippant @ 20 Jul 2015, 05:35) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>CU powering the controller chargers... you can pull the power adapters out of that piece and put them elsewhere. They're just wired to the rails on that side of the track piece. Not hard to move to another piece as long as it has the slots for borders to connect to. I'll probably have to do that as well, when I get a pit lane kit.

Yeah, it sunk in and I realized last night when I was in bed that I could do that, checked the pics again of the CU and saw what you tell me now. I´ll try to move the power taps for now to another piece, but I do have an idea about what to do with the charging of the controllers, just waiting for a package from china.

QUOTE (MrFlippant @ 20 Jul 2015, 05:35) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>SmartRace is great not only because it's already better than the Carrera Race App (think of an acronym for that ;-), but also because it's developed by a passionate D132 racer, like Bruce with his PC software. I expect it will continue to improve. I posted a long list of things that could be improved, and the dev fixed them ALL in a matter of days. Don't be afraid to let him know what you'd like to see in that app.


Yeah, Carrera should be ashamed to release such a Carrera Race Cr App. The programmer must be the CIO's 13 year old son or something for that carp to pass through QA. *grumpy face*. I would love to get more engaged in the discussion about SmartRace and give feedback. Where do they hang out?

QUOTE (MrFlippant @ 20 Jul 2015, 05:35) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Here's my version of your track:

I actually tried a _version_ of that one when I was tweaking, and managed to squeeze in some 1/3s in there somewhat similar. I felt it disrupted the flow a bit of the S-curve to break it up like that with some straights. Maybe just in my mind... I´ll give it a go again and get some second opinions from my friends before I nail things down.

Kudos for the input, always appreciated!
 
#25 ·
No, you're right, it does disrupt that flow.
I didn't play around with other curve types, that might have been able to make things work better/differently. Do you have a good selection of other turns, or be willing to buy a few? If so, I'll play around with some other options that don't use little straight bits there.
 
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