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OK well it is Carrera Pro-X and not Fly but the car running on Pro-X this evening was a Fly Porsche GT1 98 Evo 2.
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Spurred by a damn good flaming on Carrera Digital in another post I decided to test it once and for all, I also did some asking about...
It IS possible
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humble pie eating time. Sorry 'darainbow'
OK the pertinent facts when converting a non Pro- X car are:
The mammoth guide is simply for the Carrera Laptimer to be used in conjunction with Pro-X and it also serves to control self the adjusting magnet. It is NOT a requirement of Pro-X.
The self adjusting magnet is not required for Pro-X thank God, although it DOES seem to work on Pro-X at least (well to a certain degree anyway)
The Digital board inside the car is NOT going to be sold as a conversion kit according to Carrera (not yet at least and there are no plans to do so although there is no Official statement on this). This from a close source to Carrera (Cheers thomas
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However, it IS going to be sold as a replacement part so quite what the difference is is anyones guess. I suspect it is labelled thus to prevent a flood of questions and requests for help from people trying and getting the conversion wrong.
Also the board is huge (see two pics below) in slot terms and will not fit most cars. For this reason I chose the Fly Porsche as it has a lexan interior and thus plenty of space inside the body.
Ok, what you need to do, assuming you are using a donor car like me, in this instance the F1 Williams car.
This is what it looks like on the outside. The important parts are the sensor (top left of the magnet) and the dip switch array you can see to the top of the movable magnet.
![]()
Also important is to note that the distance between the guide retaining post and the front of the board is 30mm, the board must obviously be centred within the chassis from left to right.
![]()
To remove:
From the board itself -
Desolder the wires leading from the guide.
From the motor -
Desolder the power wires and the diode connecting the two electrical lugs of the motor. Pay attention to the polarity of the diode, the silver tip must connect to positive on the motor.
Now the board will easily come away and you can ditch, display or whatever with the shell and chassis of the F1 car.
Fitting into the Porsche is relatively easy and I fixed it (after taking measurements and finding the optimal position) with super glue to the chassis after desoldering the wires from the motor.
![]()
Note that Carrera polarity is opposite to Fly cars (and many others) so find out which side of the guide is positive first, these ones have no Carrera polarity switch either.
After the board is secured you simply reconnect the wires from the guide to the board as they were in the Pro-X car (polarity aware!) and then resolder the wires from the board to the motor and remember the diode (polarity aware!).
What you end up with is as in the picture above.
Now for the underside you need to drill one hole and cut one slot as shown below...
![]()
The sensor hole is 5mm and the slot is 5mm by 20mm. I achieved this with careful application of the mighty dremel.
Then refit the body, check for clearances, check the manual, set the dip switches and place it on the track.
How did it go? (NO mag remember) well...
Lack of brakes is a nightmare and seriously inhibits performance sadly, maybe fitting a magnet will help.
Here is a list of modes you can select with Pro-x and my findings with the Porsche...
Automatic - slow: Stops and starts, not enough power.
Automatic - medium: better, constant running but way too easy to beat.
Automatic - fast: Too fast and deslots on every corner wether on the inside or outside.
Lane changing under automatic: works extremely well.
Manual mode: we only have a basic F1 set with a few extra changeover sections (digital) and a couple of straights and curves (pic tomorrow - I forgot!). We have no kerbs or borders (not supplied in the set! damn silly as you need them)
However once you accept that speed is not going to happen the car ran well and was easily better than the F1 cars supplied, I would like to test some more converted cars which is the first time I have actually wanted to spend any time on Pro-X track so the conversion must have been worth it
![]()
I do have to point out a couple of issues I have with the F1 Pro-X set...
On the plus side the front wing design is excellent for this type of use (crash and bash is a definate part of Digital racing), they clip in well and fall away instead of breaking in a collision.
However, the minus list (for me) is larger and a shame IMO...
The tyres on the cars (front and back) are too large for the rims and are very easily unseated which means bad handling/running and time spent trying to reseat them.
Even with this feature I think open wheel cars are not the ideal choice for Digital sets, especially as they are aimed at kids, the damage is collosal and unavoidable.
I also dislike the thumb controllers as they are not nearly responsive enough, especially as the system has no braking. There is also no chance to change them (but to be fair it is unlikely that the Scalextric ones can be changed either although they are fine response wise if the prototypes I tested are the same)
Then we come to automatic mode, I LIKE that you can have from 1 to all 4 running on Automatic and so do most kids I have tried it with.
I don't like that slow mode is too slow and the cars judder and stall often. Removing the second magnet (fixed around rear of car) helps but then the cars do not like fast mode at all.
Medium mode is better and functions well but it way too easy to beat.
Fast mode is too fast and deslots on corners are frequent and unavoidable (Borders would help I suspect).
This system isn't for me but kids like it (the whole point maybe???) and converting the Porsche HAS made me want to experiment more, I look forward to doing a comparison when the Scalextric Digital lands here.
Enjoy!
PS: thomas sorry about your F1 Williams.........
![]()
Spurred by a damn good flaming on Carrera Digital in another post I decided to test it once and for all, I also did some asking about...
It IS possible
OK the pertinent facts when converting a non Pro- X car are:
The mammoth guide is simply for the Carrera Laptimer to be used in conjunction with Pro-X and it also serves to control self the adjusting magnet. It is NOT a requirement of Pro-X.
The self adjusting magnet is not required for Pro-X thank God, although it DOES seem to work on Pro-X at least (well to a certain degree anyway)
The Digital board inside the car is NOT going to be sold as a conversion kit according to Carrera (not yet at least and there are no plans to do so although there is no Official statement on this). This from a close source to Carrera (Cheers thomas
However, it IS going to be sold as a replacement part so quite what the difference is is anyones guess. I suspect it is labelled thus to prevent a flood of questions and requests for help from people trying and getting the conversion wrong.
Also the board is huge (see two pics below) in slot terms and will not fit most cars. For this reason I chose the Fly Porsche as it has a lexan interior and thus plenty of space inside the body.
Ok, what you need to do, assuming you are using a donor car like me, in this instance the F1 Williams car.
This is what it looks like on the outside. The important parts are the sensor (top left of the magnet) and the dip switch array you can see to the top of the movable magnet.
Also important is to note that the distance between the guide retaining post and the front of the board is 30mm, the board must obviously be centred within the chassis from left to right.
To remove:
From the board itself -
Desolder the wires leading from the guide.
From the motor -
Desolder the power wires and the diode connecting the two electrical lugs of the motor. Pay attention to the polarity of the diode, the silver tip must connect to positive on the motor.
Now the board will easily come away and you can ditch, display or whatever with the shell and chassis of the F1 car.
Fitting into the Porsche is relatively easy and I fixed it (after taking measurements and finding the optimal position) with super glue to the chassis after desoldering the wires from the motor.
Note that Carrera polarity is opposite to Fly cars (and many others) so find out which side of the guide is positive first, these ones have no Carrera polarity switch either.
After the board is secured you simply reconnect the wires from the guide to the board as they were in the Pro-X car (polarity aware!) and then resolder the wires from the board to the motor and remember the diode (polarity aware!).
What you end up with is as in the picture above.
Now for the underside you need to drill one hole and cut one slot as shown below...
The sensor hole is 5mm and the slot is 5mm by 20mm. I achieved this with careful application of the mighty dremel.
Then refit the body, check for clearances, check the manual, set the dip switches and place it on the track.
How did it go? (NO mag remember) well...
Lack of brakes is a nightmare and seriously inhibits performance sadly, maybe fitting a magnet will help.
Here is a list of modes you can select with Pro-x and my findings with the Porsche...
Automatic - slow: Stops and starts, not enough power.
Automatic - medium: better, constant running but way too easy to beat.
Automatic - fast: Too fast and deslots on every corner wether on the inside or outside.
Lane changing under automatic: works extremely well.
Manual mode: we only have a basic F1 set with a few extra changeover sections (digital) and a couple of straights and curves (pic tomorrow - I forgot!). We have no kerbs or borders (not supplied in the set! damn silly as you need them)
However once you accept that speed is not going to happen the car ran well and was easily better than the F1 cars supplied, I would like to test some more converted cars which is the first time I have actually wanted to spend any time on Pro-X track so the conversion must have been worth it
I do have to point out a couple of issues I have with the F1 Pro-X set...
On the plus side the front wing design is excellent for this type of use (crash and bash is a definate part of Digital racing), they clip in well and fall away instead of breaking in a collision.
However, the minus list (for me) is larger and a shame IMO...
The tyres on the cars (front and back) are too large for the rims and are very easily unseated which means bad handling/running and time spent trying to reseat them.
Even with this feature I think open wheel cars are not the ideal choice for Digital sets, especially as they are aimed at kids, the damage is collosal and unavoidable.
I also dislike the thumb controllers as they are not nearly responsive enough, especially as the system has no braking. There is also no chance to change them (but to be fair it is unlikely that the Scalextric ones can be changed either although they are fine response wise if the prototypes I tested are the same)
Then we come to automatic mode, I LIKE that you can have from 1 to all 4 running on Automatic and so do most kids I have tried it with.
I don't like that slow mode is too slow and the cars judder and stall often. Removing the second magnet (fixed around rear of car) helps but then the cars do not like fast mode at all.
Medium mode is better and functions well but it way too easy to beat.
Fast mode is too fast and deslots on corners are frequent and unavoidable (Borders would help I suspect).
This system isn't for me but kids like it (the whole point maybe???) and converting the Porsche HAS made me want to experiment more, I look forward to doing a comparison when the Scalextric Digital lands here.
Enjoy!
PS: thomas sorry about your F1 Williams.........
