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SureChange Guide for SSD

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#1 · (Edited by Moderator)








NEW SureChange guide for SSD - never miss a lane change again!

What happens when two SlotForum members with too much time on their hands start collaborating? Two hobby traders with something that promises to remove some annoying SSD track design constraints.
Over the last few months Richard Perry (aka Mr Modifier) from Route1Racing has been working with Gareth Jones (aka Choc-Ice) from Chase-Cars to make a game changing guide for Scalextric SSD digital.
Gareth and Richard first worked together when Richard did some work for Gareth moulding tyres for the Chase-Cars "Fall Guy" truck. Richard had this idea to solve a problem with his digital racing but not the
3D skills needed to bring it to reality - skills which Gareth has in abundance. SSD racers all know that a lane changer straight after a curve can be problematic. Racing with magnets it's not so much of a
problem but quicker cars with magnets still slide out of corners and miss the sensor. Richard's club races all of its classes magless and there are lots of incidents with cars sliding round the corner before the
pit lane entrance and missing the sensor; thus entering the pits at full speed. This punts any refuelling cars out of the pits thus ending their refuelling prematurely. Lots of home users have this issue with missing
sensors and layouts are constrained by having to have a full straight in front of any lane changer. In a loft or spare bedroom this is an issue that limits where you can put a lane changer and severely restricts
your design options.

Working entirely through the medium of SlotForum (they have only met once face to face), Gareth and Richard have designed a guide with a retaining ring at the front that accepts the Scalextric SSD LED. By
putting the LED on the guide, immediately in front and above the guide blade, you are guaranteed that; whatever your car is doing at the rear, as long as you are in the slot - the LED will hit the sensor. The new
guide works every time on a sensor placed immediately after a bend - even an R1 hairpin! Because tooling for injection moulding is mega expensive (£6k-£8k typically) there was no way this could be produced
conventionally. So the guys are 3D printing the guides using sintered nylon which produces a hard wearing guide in small enough volumes to make the project possible.

The guide is now robust - prototypes were tested with lots of cars and a few independent SlotForum SSD experts were sent sample guides to try them out. Some changes were suggested and the final product is now
ready, tested and working on all sorts of cars. An independent review is due on SlotForum shortly. The guide has already been shown to work on Scalextric (cars with the classic guide like the C7 Mini, C125 Porsche,
C128 BMW, and more modern Ford Taurus and Merc CLK etc.). It is also currently working on modern Ninco1 and Slot.It HRS chassis. Anything that will accept a classic Scalextric guide or a Ninco sprung guide can
use this guide. Of course Gareth's Chase-Cars all accept the guide and it even has a hole moulded at the rear of the blade for the steering pin.

The guide stem is long enough to be a direct replacement for a Ninco sprung guide and is easily cut down to fit many makes of slot car. The guide is provided with a screw and washer fitting and works well in many
slot cars without any modifications required to the car's guide mounting. The guide is available in white and black. You can also order a replacement IR LED, copper braid and a ferrite man.

The guide is called the SureChange guide and can be found at Route1racing and Chase Cars The guide will be on show at Gaydon on the Chase-Cars stand and a small number of guides may
be available for purchase on the day. Pre-orders are now being taken on the www.route1racing.com website - simply order and pay via PayPal and you will be allocated your order from the initial production run
which will be posted out no later than May 15th. You will also be able to order via the Chase-Cars website very soon. See the video HERE
 
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#2 · (Edited by Moderator)
Fantastic! I was lucky enough to get one of the first prototypes and they are brilliant!
They are drop in replacements for so many types of guide that it seems not credible, but it works!
Now I can chip my older analogue cars without destroying them, no need to drill holes, just swap the guide and use a saloon chip. The LED fits straight in.
Here it is fitted to a twelve year old TVR, connects straight to the springy contacts
 
#3 ·
Thanks RikoRocket - much appreciated!

RikoRocket and a few others were very helpful in developing the guide. The production version is actually version 3. We tweaked the prototypes in the light of our testers' findings and their improvement suggestions - not radical changes but enough to make the product better - heartfelt thanks to those testers. 3D production is definitely the way forward - the sintered nylon is very resistant to abrasion and you can produce in very low volumes with no setup costs (although actual print costs bring tears to my eyes!)

We have run the guides at our club for a couple of months now and the cars that have them fitted never miss the lane changer and never enter the pits unexpectedly after powersliding out of the esses.

The guide allows you to place a lane changer anywhere, even immediately after an R1 hairpin. This means that you can fit any number of lane changers into the smallest of layout spaces.

The guide comes in white and black. White is fine for the C7042 APB with firmware 1.09 or later. C7042's with standard firmware and all other SSD power bases need the black version of the guide. Both available for pre-order right now, delivery in the week after Gaydon, possibly sooner if we get a lot of orders


If you have any questions - fire away and Gareth or I will do our best to answer!
 
#4 ·
Will these work as replacements for the round Scalextric guides found on DPR cars?
Great work BTW!
Cheers!
 
#5 · (Edited by Moderator)
I have to own up as being one of the few ...... others ....


Remember all those replacement guides that come with the C7005 and C7006 chips?? Well ......... the braid from them works superbly well with these guides if you fit them like the SCX ones with the ends pointing downwards. Brilliant design guys ......
 
#6 · (Edited by Moderator)
Hi Sealevel,

Thank you.

These are not a direct replacement for the modern quick change guides. The current guides have a stem that is a little wider at the bottom (but the same width at the top where the screw is). I think the new guide could be made to fit but the half-round hole in the chassis would need to be enlarged slightly. It could be done by a reasonably handy person.

We knew this when we designed this guide. We wanted to go for the largest potential market as our design allows even cars like the C7 mini - with no chassis to speak of - to be chipped. and we made the stem longer so it is a straight replacement for a Ninco sprung guide (don't forget to keep the ninco spring!)

HOWEVER we ARE planning a second version of the guide for DPR cars (and the modern non-DPR cars that use the quick change guide). Realistically it is probably a couple of months away because Gaydon is sort of getting in the way of new product development! The second version will be designed to be an easy fit with no chassis mods needed. We will probably go old-school with eyelets rather than the Scalextric shoes as we don't have the ability to print metal (unless you wanted the shoes in solid silver or gold for more than the cost of a new car!!!)

Hi Greg,

Your input and suggestions led to a better product so thank you for your contributions
 
#7 ·
R&G, this looks very promising indeed! I've ordered a pile for us in Denmark to try - we have those issues too. An extra break in the pits is never appreciated. If it works as promised (I'm sure it does), I'll probably have to mod all of my NSRs to accept the thicker post. My only regret is the time spent making parallel sensors on my home track...

Come 15 May!!!

Br,
Christian
 
#9 ·
At long last, I have wondered when somebody would make guides like this.
Cadeau to you guys, great work.
 
#10 · (Edited by Moderator)
The underside of a chase-car is quite complicated, but here's how a guide looks when it's installed. The braid wires come out forwards and the LED wires just follow them around. To avoid the front suspension pivot they have to come quite wide, this isn't so bad on a "normal" slot car!



There's plenty of space for the wires to clear the suspension and body posts even on full steering lock (this isn't full steering lock by the way!)


Now fully equipped for a proper chase...
 
#11 · (Edited by Moderator)
Hi Mr Olufsen,

Order received and you will be the first to receive the guides.

If a few more orders come in then I will bring the production date forward. We were being cautious as we weren't sure how popular the guide would be.

If we get orders for another 20 guides then I will press the "go" button immediately and production will take a maximum of 2 weeks.

Hello Porsche Racer,

your order will help bring the production date foward.

Hi PSRRFH,

This guide is a direct result of the help that people offer so freely on SlotForum. Kudos to the Mods for getting the new owners to agree to the Hobby Trader initiative - it means this sort of project can get going and tell everyone about it without incurring massive advertising costs. If we had to find a few hundred for advertising this would never have happened.

I had a very short play with the two cars Choc-Ice shows above. They appear in the video in post#1 which was shot just before they were sent to the lucky customer. I soooooo want a bad guy Limo and 5 cop cars to chase it. SSD will never be the same again!!!
 
#12 ·
Image then if you fit the Cop lights to the chip and use InCar-Pro coupled with Throttle-Pro wireless boxes ....... you can start the chase then hit the button and on comes the lights and sirens if you fit some ...
 
#17 ·
We found the level then. It took a dozen posts but we got there


Back to the guide....

Mr Flippant - the modern Scaley guide replacement is only a few more grey hairs on Gareth's head away.

I won't commit to an exact date until I next see Gareth face to face and buy him a pint!
 
#18 ·
QUOTE (sealevel @ 11 Apr 2013, 21:36) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Will these work as replacements for the round Scalextric guides found on DPR cars?
Great work BTW!
Cheers!


You have to open up the hole slightly and trim the outer two edges by about a mm.
 
#19 ·
Nice work Riko!

The design has evolved since that version of the guide. The eyelet holder has been chamfered at the top at 45 degrees. That might make fitting it a little easier.
 
#23 ·
I can certainly recommend changing to one of these guides!

I have run one fora while at club in a Ninco Corvette from new and a Ninco Camaro after changing to the new guide.

Since then I haven't experienced one false change using either car which is a great improvement on the Camaro as it would miss the pits at the most vital of moments! Since the new guide this problem has been eliminated.

Myself, Daughter and Son have noticed the difference on our cars and it is well worth the investment!
 
#24 ·
Having seen Mr Modifier and Scoobytek trialling the prototypes at club nights, I can say these really are the business. Plan to completely convert my digital fleet, bit by bit.

They are also able to take a fair bit of rough trade, having seen cars shod this way smacked out of the slot by our very own SSDC bulldozer racer ;o)
 
#25 ·
QUOTE (UshCha @ 12 Apr 2013, 06:32) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Any chance it will fit slot.it. In particular the Porsche 956/962 models.

I have fitted the guide to Slot.It HRS sitting underneath a Volvo XC90!!! I don't have either of the Porsches but looking at my R390 and GT40 there are a couple of issues - the Slot.It guide stem is thinner than Sclaextric/Ninco/SureChange so you would need to ream out the hole - meaning you would be committed to the new guide. The Slot.It guide deck is very thin - much thinner than our guide so I think the guide would raise the nose more than you would like. Our guide also protrudes forward more than the cut-out in the Slot.It chassis allows so more dremelling required. I would say if you have a spare chassis and don't mind some surgery then it could be worth a go - the alternative would be what I have done on my R390 which is remove the SMT LED from the Slot.It chip and wire in a 5mm (not 3mm) IR LED in a new hole in the chassis about 3mm behind the guide blade. This works for all but the most extreme power slides.

QUOTE (RacingSnake @ 12 Apr 2013, 07:14) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Great work guys. I especially like the fact that the braids are SCX style.

Thanks - I'm a fan of the SCX double braid style so it was a "must" for SureChange. We also extended the guide deck backwards and made it wider to reduce the chance of the braids shorting up and over the back of the guide blade.

QUOTE (Porsche Racer @ 12 Apr 2013, 07:49) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Is the "Extras pack - copper braids and IR LED £1.00" not available yet? I tried to add it to my order but it wouldn't let me.

I've placed my order for 3 of the guides.

The extras pack is available but it appears the website needs sorting. Apologies - I am on that this morning. I will be in touch shortly to sort out your order.
 
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