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4 lane PB for SSD

36K views 101 replies 29 participants last post by  Lone Racer  
#1 ·
Thanks to SteveF1964 I realized I hadn't clearly finished this, and it was buried in the pit lane thread:

4 lane single PB.

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Ingredients, 1 good PB, one knackered one but with salvageable sensor track piece, 2x squeeze (chicanes), 1 soldering iron, a scalpel, some wire and a little patience

1) Car ID Sensor:

All wires on the second track piece are connected to the PB parallel with the original boards connections.
At the track PCB for car ID sensor, on one board leave blue as is, and disconnect the green wire from the board. On the second board do the opposite: leave green as is, disconnect blue.
Jumpers (in yellow on my pics) are inserted as shown onto both boards. Scrape off green stuff (solder resist) before attempting to solder wire to tracks. Ignore the red markings on my picture (they were for the pit lane mod)
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2) Blade Sensor:

The red and black wires on the second track piece are connected to the PB parallel with the original boards connections.
At the PB PCB The yellow wire is left where it is for the original sensor. The white is disconnected at the PB.
For the additional track piece blade sensor we wire the YELLOW wire to the hole on the PB PCB where we disconnected white. As with the original sensor the white wire is not connected to the PB.
Just to clarify at the PB we should have 2 red wires going to the original red terminal, ditto black, then the original yellow wire untouched to its original terminal and a new yellow wire going to the place which was originally the termination for white. No white wires at the PB.
The fat track is cut exactly where it says GND, shown on my pics, on both the blade sensor PCBs.
The white wire is cut as shown and resoldered to the terminal shown.
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Fit 2x squeeze one on each lane about 1 to 2 straights before the PB. RichG's simple solution to stop missed counts. Essential for correct and reliable operation!

Here is video of it working

Next episode, wiring a pit lane off of the main straight with one PB
 
#2 ·
Wow great work, I wish I saw this a while ago. I'm having a problem with the blade sensor on 1 of my PB's on my 4 lane track. The LED works but the sensor is not triggering.
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#4 ·
Great work Riko,
I assume by just lengthening the wires you could have this set-up to cover a pitlane I have the mandatory spare PB, this could be a great addition to my track, I may need some guidance when I get to try it.

Well done

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#5 ·
As this parallels the 2 lanes on each piece of track it is not the ideal solution for the pit lane, what you actually want is the PB lanes to be normal and independent, and the pit to be paralleled off of each lane.
The ID sensor board is easy, the blade detect sensor is the one I'm trying to sort at the moment. I'll post it as a seperate thread as I suspect a lot of people will be interested!
 
#6 ·
My pitlane isnt near the start/finish so I dont have that problem, but this looks a great bit of kit you have worked on. One of the biggest problems with digital racing is when starting a race as once you get past 2 cars, the starts seem a bit of a "non-start"
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Any car who is 3rd on the grid or lower cannot react on the green light as his lane will be blocked by the car in front anyway. A four lane start would be terrific wit hthe aim of qualifying to get the inside lane for the quickest 1st corner with the penalty of a lower qualifying position being out on the wider corner.

fantastic to know this sort of thing is possible. I am assuming that as the PB detects all four lanes, then no further programming is needed for pc software like pclapcounter to work as normal ?
 
#7 · (Edited by Moderator)
QUOTE (Chickster25 @ 16 Dec 2006, 22:22) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Any car who is 3rd on the grid or lower cannot react on the green light as his lane will be blocked by the car in front anyway. A four lane start would be terrific wit hthe aim of qualifying to get the inside lane for the quickest 1st corner with the penalty of a lower qualifying position being out on the wider corner.
Or stagger the start positions, then a second row guy can leapfrog to the front with a good start?

QUOTE (Chickster25 @ 16 Dec 2006, 22:22) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>fantastic to know this sort of thing is possible. I am assuming that as the PB detects all four lanes, then no further programming is needed for pc software like pclapcounter to work as normal ?
Yes, nothing else needed. You do need to have the squeeze a straight or 2 from the startline to preclude 2 cars crossing simultaneously on the same track, per RichGs brilliant idea.
 
#8 ·
Haven't had the chance to comment on this yet but I wanted to say this is brilliant. I have been dying to make my front straight 3 lanes but have kept it to 2 for obvious reasons. This would now make it possible.
Great work and thanks!

On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the hardest, how hard is it to do this modification for a neophyte?
 
#9 ·
QUOTE (Chickster25 @ 17 Dec 2006, 09:22) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Any car who is 3rd on the grid or lower cannot react on the green light as his lane will be blocked by the car in front anyway. A four lane start would be terrific wit hthe aim of qualifying to get the inside lane for the quickest 1st corner with the penalty of a lower qualifying position being out on the wider corner.
Exactly why real 1:1 races have qualifying heats. It cant be any other way, and I personally wouldnt want it any other way as its realistic the way it is, so dont see how you could or would want to change anything in this regard. I think the PB has a qualify mode?
 
#10 ·
QUOTE (mad727 @ 1 Jan 2007, 05:46) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Haven't had the chance to comment on this yet but I wanted to say this is brilliant. I have been dying to make my front straight 3 lanes but have kept it to 2 for obvious reasons. This would now make it possible.
Great work and thanks!

On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the hardest, how hard is it to do this modification for a neophyte?

Thanks mad!

I would say a 12 year old could do this. Most of the soldering is to existing pads. The track cutting just needs a sharp hobby knife. The most difficult part is soldering to the small tracks, and scraping off the green "solder-resist" coating. That takes good eyes and a steady hand.

Compared to some of the modification that Injectorman has devised with his R3 LC, this is a walk in the park... 4/10.
 
#12 · (Edited by Moderator)
As I have just seen a link to this thread from Hornby's forum I thought I would add a couple more pictures

View of bottom, using a piece of plastic to screw the 4 lanes together

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And the final result before the cover went on:

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And actually being used in a 4 lane digital circuit: the 4 lane master with throttles is the one where the start line goes right across the lanes, the second PB is for the high power MS mod link

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#13 ·
yo Riko

have been wondering for awhile
and apologize in advance if answer already posted

what would happen ?
if lane 1 and 3 counters are wired together
and 2 cars pass counters in lane 1 and 3
at exact same instance
 
#14 ·
well since no response meant ...

searched some more
under pinned all new useful...links
found topic dummies guide to sensing single lane pitlane
Rich G posting #33 point 5 says
car crosses same time one will be missed

so guess thats all the problem is
one will not count if 2 toys cross at exact same moment when lap counters wired together
can live with that
 
#15 ·
Sorry missed ya! Yes the toys would then only count one, but remember that you can have two cars bumper to bumper at full speed on one lane and it gets that right, so we are talking the cars have to be absolutely in line to cause a miss.
 
#18 ·
Gorp,
I've always put on a bottom. I've been tempted not to as it reduces the track to normal track height so no miniscule bump, but the risk of stuff falling out or getting snagged was too great.
 
#19 ·
QUOTE (RikoRocket @ 15 Dec 2006, 02:03) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Fit 2x squeeze one on each lane about 1 to 2 straights before the PB. RichG's simple solution to stop missed counts. Essential for correct and reliable operation!

Forgive me for dredging this up from the dusty depths, but a couple of the early links in the posts are now broken.
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I am thinking of making my loft track all 4 lane digital, now that 2 car analogue can be driven as well.

What is the "2x squeeze" referred to please, and how does it work. (any pics)?
 
#20 ·
Hi Kev,

I have a feeling that these might be the squeezes referred to.
 
#24 ·
From what I understand is that as the sensors are wired in parrallel on a 4 lane start finish
and each sensor on a two lane pb can read a car each
but if the sister sensor is activated at exactly the same time then you get issues

Michael
 
#25 ·
In reality you have to be within milliseconds to get a missed count. And I have never bothered with squeezes as the likelyhood of missing a count is so unlikely and I have not seen one to date when running my 4 lane start.
 
#26 ·
Riko,
The Putfile links in posts #1 and #11 are not working. At least not for me.

Cheers!
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