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1980s Scalextric Cars With Lights: What Do the Lights Do?

2K views 8 replies 5 participants last post by  peregrine 
#1 ·
I've got a late(ish) Scaley Porsche 935 (C431 I think) which is supposed to have working lights. It's got all the gubbins, but they don't. Work, that is.

I can see how the headlamps work, and why they don't (the little grain-of-wheat bulb has long since met its maker). However, the tail lights mystify me somewhat. They're LEDs, fed through a fairly simple circuit board. They flashed occasionally when I applied a 9V battery across the motor, but not consistently, or in any way that allowed me to determine what was making them do it.

It would help if I knew how they were supposed to behave. Are they supposed to be lit constantly, as tail lights? Or are they supposed to only come on when the throttle is closed, as brake lights? The capacitors on the circuit board suggest the latter, but, although I'm not a total bozo with regard to electronics, I'm having difficulty deciding what the circuit board does. As I've never seen one of these cars in full working order, any advice would be appreciated. I've got a similarly wired, and similarly non-functional, Jag XJR, so it would be handy to know how these work.

Thanks in advance.
 
#2 ·
I've got this old Jaguar Scalextric with the same setup by the sounds of it and I too am interested in finding out more about the electronics as I shorted it out and I not sure how to go about testing it to figure out what's going on , as I remember the head lights and tail lights were on all the time but when you braked the brack lights would come on as well.
Cheers,
John.
 
#3 ·
Not sure what Vintage your 935 is and the C number you've quoted is for the Escort xr3i..

There are several incarnations of this Porsche with differing lighting set ups...

Have a look at this Porsche 935 Link 👍🏼

Hopefully Riko will spot this thread, he'll know the functionality of the car 😉
 
#4 · (Edited)
My car's a Type 4, with blue body and alarmingly yellow chassis. I got the C431 number from here.

To be honest, I'm not that impressed with it in general. The motor (Mabuchi can) is very poorly located and wobbles around when the back axle applies sidethrust, the lighting circuit board is, basically, thrown in and doesn't seem to be positively fixed in any way (unlike the Jag, which has a slot in the chassis for it) and the whole thing just screams the very worst of British manufacturing. Oh, and the crude, self-tappered magnet mounting plate hanging off the underside is a bit of a joke. Still, I'd like to at least make it work as intended. Hence my query as to what "working as intended" actually looks like.
 
#5 ·
My bad🤯, yes it's c431. Your link states head & brake lights..

Have you viewed the service sheet on your link shows the lighting circuit etc 👍🏼
 
#6 ·
Yes, had a look at that. It shows the components, but doesn't describe how the lights are supposed to behave. The fact that they're described as "brake lights", though, is rather suggestive of their flashing when the throttle is closed.
 
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