Flyslot Toy Fair 2012 Report

Here is a video of the prototype sound decoder on display at the Flyslot stand.

Possibilities for the future: Up-loadable sounds, motor sounds linked to throttle (revving), G-force sensor enabling tyre squealing on cornering... Great stuff. Fly are pushing the boundaries once again.

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/z8g-OzwQH78?rel=0

Price will be very reasonable as the Alphaseries of cars are low detail and therefore already cheaper than the high-detail cars. The sound decoder will add more, but ideally the total price of the sound-equipped car should not be more than a standard high-detail car. What do you guys think about this?

Here is the promo documentation from Flyslot about the Alphaseries range:

Sound has been available for model trains for a while. Early on, people were obsessed with synchronising the 'chuff' with the wheel position (and thus piston position). To do this they used to add disks to the inside of the driving wheels with black and white stripes printed on them. Then an opto-diode under the loco would pick up the wheel movement and produce the chuff accordingly. These days, it is much more common to link the motor output voltage and back emf to the chuffing sound and it works quite well. It gives a very satisfactory effect whilst not perfectly synchronising the chuff to the piston position - anyway when moving, it is virtually impossible to see any error.

With cars, you have the revving motor and then the gear changes. We don't change gears on slotcars so one would have to link up-shifting to acceleration and down-shifting to breaking - but how would that work on a small home track with plenty of corners - most of us flutter the controller ans we wiz around the track. I doubt that realistic driving sounds would be achievable linked to throttle etc, but I think that these simulated sounds may be interesting all the same.

We'll see when the car is on the track. A review will be forthcoming in a few weeks.