Carrera chip/car speed sufferance

1363 Views 16 Replies 6 Participants Last post by bswan72, Sep 9, 2020

Tomykoz

Discussion Starter · Sep 6, 2020 (Edited by Moderator)

Anybody ever run into this I have two Carrera cars that I bought in a set and one was going half the speed of the other one on slow throttle so I called Carrera and they said swap chips and see if the other car goes slow and the other one goes faster........ So I swapped the chips and sure enough the one that was going fast is now going slow like it should on low throttle in the other car was just pretty much 0 to 100 when the controller was barely applied.... So career sent me another chip which works a little better but not much so I got frustrated and I swap different chips in different cars..... I had a Chevelle that was very very slow so I put that chip that I thought was bad in it and it works pretty good and I moved around a couple other chips in different cars to make them all kind of run equal.....Putting faster chips and flour cars and slower chips and faster cars
.... Just seems like careers chip building isnt very consistent

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MrFlippant

· #2 · Sep 6, 2020

Yep. Old news.

Something changed about the components on their chips that make the speed settings no longer match, and the new settings are more or less useless.

The only solution, at this point, that I'm aware of, is to work with Carrera for a replacement chip, and be very specific about the problem. Some people get back a chip that works. I think in some cases, it's the same hardware, but firmware that fixes the issue.

Sadly, Carrera have yet to acknowledge this fact, and will even continue to say that there have been no changes of any kind, which has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to not be true.

Put the "fast" chips in dad's cars, and the "slow" chips in the kid's car(s).

Reactions: 1

MrFlippant

· #3 · Sep 6, 2020

https://www.slotforum.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=193025

Slotspeed

· #4 · Sep 6, 2020 (Edited by Moderator)

A member from freeslotter has in the last weeks experimented with a tweak that may or may not prove successful as a very minor mod to alleviate this issue. (one aspect of the new FET used is that the gate turn on voltage is lower. Totally bizarre that they went to a different FET since the old ones are still available in large quantities)

If anyone in Australia (postage reasons) has an affected chip that they want to post to me I will have a go at this new mod just to see. But I can't do this for another month or so due to some busy moves.

Unfortunately the new chips also use less fuel in the fuel simulation modes than the old ones so even with the Carrera firmware mod, they are still a bit too fast and are ahead in fuel economy.

I would take it back to Carrera (whichever regional support division you are working with) with your issues and see what they say. (likely that they won't be able to do much more so up to you on how much effort you think it is worth) It sounds promising that they at least tried and suggested swapping the decoder chips rather than pretending there was no issue.

Other than that I suggest replacing the drive mosfet (the other mod and it isn't hard if you are any good at soldering PCB's) or in the future you could use aftermarket chips. I have been very busy lately or I would have started a thread on a decoder design I have been working on. I may post something about it in the next couple of weeks when things quieten down a bit hopefully.

Steve.

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Reactions: 2

Tomykoz

Discussion Starter · #5 · Sep 7, 2020

Thank you for the comments and advice.....no wonder analog is still a favorite .....something to be said for old technology.
I believe I can set different speeds for various cars with the control unit....kinda a primitive way to do things.
I do have another question:... Does anybody know if I ran a Carrera Digital car analog if I still would have speed different problems?

Tomykoz

Discussion Starter · #6 · Sep 7, 2020

MrFlippant said:
Yep. Old news.
Something changed about the components on their chips that make the speed settings no longer match, and the new settings are more or less useless.
The only solution, at this point, that I'm aware of, is to work with Carrera for a replacement chip, and be very specific about the problem. Some people get back a chip that works. I think in some cases, it's the same hardware, but firmware that fixes the issue.

Sadly, Carrera have yet to acknowledge this fact, and will even continue to say that there have been no changes of any kind, which has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to not be true.

Put the "fast" chips in dad's cars, and the "slow" chips in the kid's car(s).

Do you know if scalextric digital Cars suffers from speed differences also?

Tomykoz

Discussion Starter · #7 · Sep 7, 2020 (Edited by Moderator)

Slotspeed said:
A member from freeslotter has in the last weeks experimented with a tweak that may or may not prove successful as a very minor mod to alleviate this issue. (one aspect of the new FET used is that the gate turn on voltage is lower. Totally bizarre that they went to a different FET since the old ones are still available in large quantities)

If anyone in Australia (postage reasons) has an affected chip that they want to post to me I will have a go at this new mod just to see. But I can't do this for another month or so due to some busy moves.

Unfortunately the new chips also use less fuel in the fuel simulation modes than the old ones so even with the Carrera firmware mod, they are still a bit too fast and are ahead in fuel economy.

I would take it back to Carrera (whichever regional support division you are working with) with your issues and see what they say. (likely that they won't be able to do much more so up to you on how much effort you think it is worth) It sounds promising that they at least tried and suggested swapping the decoder chips rather than pretending there was no issue.

Other than that I suggest replacing the drive mosfet (the other mod and it isn't hard if you are any good at soldering PCB's) or in the future you could use aftermarket chips. I have been very busy lately or I would have started a thread on a decoder design I have been working on. I may post something about it in the next couple of weeks when things quieten down a bit hopefully.

Steve.

Ya,pretty frustrating....Im new to larger scale slot racing and I guess should of did more research before buying a carrera set.....guess Im gonna have to buy after market chips...a guy on another forum did some voltage measurements at low control unit settings with different brand chips and slot it aftermarket chips came in at 3.6v compared to Carreras 6.4v at slow control unit setting ....he did find at full control unit settings that most all brand chips were close at full throttle at around 13.3-14v ....makes me want to just do analog racing...but I guess Ill deal with trying to match up cars another way......

...now every time Im thinking about buying a new digital carrera car Ill never know if Im gonna get a good one or a bad one that I gotta change to a aftermarket chip....oh well....

Thanks for the info,Tom

Slotspeed

· #8 · Sep 7, 2020

Fluff, a member on Freeslotter did some comparative tests of many different Carrera compatible decoders and presented them as graphs. Is that the test you refer to? I will ask if I can reproduce them here. Most of the Carrera chips are reasonably consistent and some of the aftermarket chips follow them closely. Just the latest NCE FET equipped ones are wildly different to the old ones.

Hopefully a solution will come about.

MrFlippant

· #9 · Sep 7, 2020

Tom, have you not changed any of the speed settings on any of the cars, then? If not, be sure to make some changes to see if you can get the kind of performance you want. This is an advantage of digital, not a drawback. I thought you were talking about how the same speed setting on different chips would not result in comparable speeds, but now I'm wondering if you've changed them at all? I mean, if you haven't, then they should both be set at full speed anyway.

Anyway, the other option is to set them all at full power/speed, and just drive them better. Just like an analog track with a fixed voltage power supply.

When it comes down to it, all slot cars will exhibit a difference in speed to some extent. Sometimes it's negligible, and sometimes it's quite noticeable, all based on motor, magnets, tires, and more.

Brumos RSR

· #10 · Sep 8, 2020

When my son raced Carrera digital we would swap out chips and motors trying different combinations. Of course we were set on 5 dots for speed. What we found was some times that new chip ran very well with that old motor and vice versa. We could see several 1/10ths in most cases your results may vary. There’s more but that’s not for this thread.

Tomykoz

Discussion Starter · #11 · Sep 8, 2020

MrFlippant said:
Tom, have you not changed any of the speed settings on any of the cars, then? If not, be sure to make some changes to see if you can get the kind of performance you want. This is an advantage of digital, not a drawback. I thought you were talking about how the same speed setting on different chips would not result in comparable speeds, but now I'm wondering if you've changed them at all? I mean, if you haven't, then they should both be set at full speed anyway.

Anyway, the other option is to set them all at full power/speed, and just drive them better. Just like an analog track with a fixed voltage power supply.

When it comes down to it, all slot cars will exhibit a difference in speed to some extent. Sometimes it's negligible, and sometimes it's quite noticeable, all based on motor, magnets, tires, and more.

Yes thats what Ive done....Ive set on the highest speed and just race them carefully....I was speaking primarily when the kids race them (I try to make them as slow as possible something you cant do with the bad chip)... So I just keep those bad chip cars away from the kids erase them myself at full speed on the control unit.... I wish they all ran like a Carrera Mercedes chip I have in that car very very adjustable from a slower speed to the fastest speed very smooth

Tomykoz

Discussion Starter · #12 · Sep 8, 2020 (Edited by Moderator)

Slotspeed said:
Fluff, a member on Freeslotter did some comparative tests of many different Carrera compatible decoders and presented them as graphs. Is that the test you refer to? I will ask if I can reproduce them here. Most of the Carrera chips are reasonably consistent and some of the aftermarket chips follow them closely. Just the latest NCE FET equipped ones are wildly different to the old ones.

Hopefully a solution will come about.

Cant quite remember which forum I saw it at but the guy was using a multi meter and different brands of chipS... He would measure the voltage of the different settings of the control unit with full throttle with different chips its seem the slot it chip went down to the lowest voltage and up to the highest voltage ... It had the best range compared to chips like carrera.... Carrera makes inconsistent chips I hear about it on other forums.... I think they make a good track nice controllers nice control unit nice guardrail decent cars with the brass bushings in the axles terrible chips not horrible just not the greatest but I guess if your racing at high speed it wouldnt much matter😀.....But if you got little kids to come over that want to race make sure theyre not using a Carrera chip

UDoKuoio

· #13 · Sep 9, 2020 (Edited by Moderator)

Maybe it was me:
http://www.tuttoslot.it/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=21961

(Slot.it chip curve is probably changed)

Tomykoz

Discussion Starter · #14 · Sep 9, 2020

8

These were the posts I found on another forum

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bswan72

· #15 · Sep 9, 2020

I think this might be an intentional change by Carrera with the newest chip that has a higher top speed on lowest speed setting. It could be for several reasons with one of them being a future enhancement to the Carrera Digital system.

Slotspeed

· #16 · Sep 9, 2020

bswan72 said:
I think this might be an intentional change by Carrera with the newest chip that has a higher top speed on lowest speed setting. It could be for several reasons with one of them being a future enhancement to the Carrera Digital system.

It is just a different FET that they used for some reason. Several users have replaced the new NCE FET with the Alpha Omega FET with good results.

bswan72

· #17 · Sep 9, 2020

I'm saying that Carrera may have something in the works as to why they changed the FET.

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