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Geo Jr. Speedway

79012 Views 500 Replies 43 Participants Last post by  Ade, 
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Hello Everyone,

You may know me from my briefcase track with 1/87 scale cars I was working on some time ago. Well, I'm still working on it and hope to maybe finish it off sometime soon. But in the meantime, I have been looking up at the incredibly high ceiling we have in our garage and thinking about a track that I could lower down. I have done some extensive research on the site, and having a winch system to lower it down looks pretty doable, but before I even start to amass the items to build it, I have a couple questions I'm hoping you kind folks can help me with.

Let me tell you first what I have decided.

I want the track to be digital, and I am thinking routed with embedded Scaley or Carrera lane changers (unless there is some way to put the changer hardware into routed pieces. I did some digging on the forum and this doesn't seem to easy).

I think think I can squeeze out a 6' x 14' track area if I have a connection in the middle. Only 6' x 12' without the connection.

As this thing will be hanging from my ceiling, weight is an issue, so right now I am contemplating using 1/4"MDF laminated with 1/2" pink insulation foam, which I plan to test out soon with some I have sitting around my garage. The track will probably lower down on to some folding tables and will somehow be fastened down to them to keep the track steady.

On to the questions...

I have seen on the forum where someone made a track entirely out of insulation foam (Expanded Polystyrene) as a kind of temporary track, but has anyone tried laminating MDF to pink foam as a light weight alternative? It seems like I would be stuck without elevation with this idea, which I am not excited about. Any good ideas how to have elevations with with this?

I really love the look of the 1/24 scale cars, so I would like to run those in addition to 1/32. Can I do this using standard Scaley lane changers? Is 6' x 14' even big enough to run 1/24 scale cars well or am I just dreaming? Please remember I want to run digital.

So many people seem to go with Scalextric, but is Carrera a good option here? How easy is it to chip cars from other manufacturers with Carrera chips? I definitely like the Scaley controllers better, as controlling the cars with my thumbs seems awkward at best. I will be stuck with cheap controllers at first as I am trying to keep costs at spouse approved levels.

Regarding the winch and mounting it to my ceiling, most of the systems I have seen have been electric winches. Anybody have some ideas for a poor man's manual version? I have some hoists for bikes already in my garage, maybe adapting some of those? The only problem I could see is that it would be difficult to keep the boards level while lowering, especially since I would need two hoists in a row for each side of the track. They also are only good for 50lbs per hoist. Here is a pic...


Many thanks in advance for your help.

Heath
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QUOTE (MrFlippant @ 12 Feb 2014, 15:43) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>If you'd like to fit all your cars with SureChange guides and the appropriate chips with the LED on leads, then that'll be fine.
If not, then some more reworking would be in order. The original one was fine, except for how long in advance a pit entrance would need to be planned. Here is how I think Marcel was suggesting the earlier plan be arranged:


I also think this works better than the latest iteration, if only because the location of a lane changer IN a turn REQUIRES that all your cars are modified with a SureChange guide as previously mentioned. But also, the lane changer locations are spread about more evenly, and in what I believe to be effective locations.

Actually, now that I look at it, the XLC parallel with the pit should be one full straight sooner, or removed. I put the APB in last, and wasn't paying attention to where that lane changer was.

Great advice Mr Flippant. I will be going back to the old plan. One question, with the APB base on the inside, is that going to be a problem with cords going across the track?

Thanks again,

Heath
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MrFlippant
Why would you lay cords across the track? Assuming you don't bother to part the base from the track to make the track more realistic looking, there's no reason not to put a hole on the inside of the track to route the various cables through (see RacingSnake's Interlonza). If I were to go through the trouble of routing a track, I'd put the sensors up under the wood, not embed the whole track as in the photo. I only put it there for a suggestion on location. Take a look at Wookie's BLST track thread... he had originally had the track designed to embed the plastic track for the base, but decided to fill it with wood and put the sensors under the wood. The end result will be a much better looking track.
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QUOTE (MrFlippant @ 13 Feb 2014, 10:48) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Why would you lay cords across the track? Assuming you don't bother to part the base from the track to make the track more realistic looking, there's no reason not to put a hole on the inside of the track to route the various cables through (see RacingSnake's Interlonza). If I were to go through the trouble of routing a track, I'd put the sensors up under the wood, not embed the whole track as in the photo. I only put it there for a suggestion on location. Take a look at Wookie's BLST track thread... he had originally had the track designed to embed the plastic track for the base, but decided to fill it with wood and put the sensors under the wood. The end result will be a much better looking track.

Yeah, I guess I wasn't thinking. Nothing new there.
I'll have to look at Wookie's thread more carefully. I remember thinking that separating the power base part looked a little bit dicey. I definitely don't want to break the APB.


Heath
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MrFlippant
It's just splicing wires. Given what you've shown you can do, and the fact that even *I* was able to do it, I think that splitting the base from the track is really the best suggestion I can make.
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QUOTE (MrFlippant @ 13 Feb 2014, 12:43) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>It's just splicing wires. Given what you've shown you can do, and the fact that even *I* was able to do it, I think that splitting the base from the track is really the best suggestion I can make.

You have given me confidence. I am going to go for it. I would love to put it all under the track, but my track will be sitting on a table, so I have to figure out how that will work.

Much to do.

Heath
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MrFlippant
If you separate the base from the track, you can swap the base and XLC around, putting the XLC right after the base, which avoids the issue of having one right before the base (waggling car missing the sensors).
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Actual construction has finally begun!!!!!





I have printed the track out at full scale and will be spraymounting this to the board to give me a routing guide. This is my stack of print outs. Kind of a pain, but a lot cheaper than paying someone big dollars to print it out on a big printer. My plan is to cut the lane change sections out of the mdf before gluing it on to the foam, this way, it won't make such a mess and will go quicker as the foam should route really easily.



Starting to put the sheets on, but the wind got crazy and I need some spray mount.



I cut the sides at 2" high, but looking at it on the track, it seems too short to stop any wayward cars. I'm thinking I will use 1/4" mdf and make it at least 3"? Any recommendations?



That's the update for now. Maybe some more time next week to work on this.

Heath
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Personally I think it is a bad plan. You will be much better of with a drawing by hand, as track pieces turns are not as smooth as you can make them by hand. - but it's only time and some cheap Wood and it can be redone whenever you want to.......
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QUOTE (Gysse @ 21 Feb 2014, 13:02) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Personally I think it is a bad plan. You will be much better of with a drawing by hand, as track pieces turns are not as smooth as you can make them by hand. - but it's only time and some cheap Wood and it can be redone whenever you want to.......
Thanks for the advice.

I've done it before this way with a much smaller track, but I was able to get some good flowing lines out of Illustrator. If I find they are a bit squarish, I can always adjust the plexiglass guide before I route. It's just a guide of what I would like to do.
Heath
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Screwed up a bit on the slot spacing. Apparently the online reference I used was bad...

I did start attaching the print outs and the spray mount I used is working perfect. Too bad I have to reprint now
.
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One track piece down, 3 more to go...

This one was hopefully the most difficult due to the curve. I had to reprint the pieces of paper around this area as ther was foam everywhere and the spray mount wasn't sticking anymore.
Hopefully more updates soon.
Heath
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MrFlippant
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It's really hard to tell from the photo... is the lane changer embedded into the table surface, then? Great place to start. Once you get all the lane changers embedded, you just need to connect up the slots with some nice, smooth, routed slots.
Just be sure not to get too creative with the gently curving slots prior to a lane changer.
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QUOTE (MrFlippant @ 10 Mar 2014, 16:05) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>It's really hard to tell from the photo... is the lane changer embedded into the table surface, then? Great place to start. Once you get all the lane changers embedded, you just need to connect up the slots with some nice, smooth, routed slots.
Just be sure not to get too creative with the gently curving slots prior to a lane changer.


You can see it better in this picture...

It's all embedded in the track as you guessed.
Heath
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Looks good.
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QUOTE (Noobdelux @ 11 Mar 2014, 00:14) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Looks good.

Thanks Noob.

Finally was able to spend a little more time and lay down all the sheets. I still need to glue them, but it gave me an idea of the overall scope...



Corners too tight? Ignore the flat spot, I will be smoothing that out when I lay the routing strip.



Hard to tell from this picture, but I will have to do some bondo work to get a tight fit to the edge of the corner section. Hopefully I won't have this problem with the straight pieces, as the routing will be done with a guide.

I will be moving my further progress on the track to a new thread soon, as the title is no longer accurate.

Thanks for reading.

Heath
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MrFlippant
I don't think that turn will be too tight, not for a typical 1/8" slot.
You can ask a moderator to change your thread title to a more appropriate name, such as the name of your track, if you have an idea for one.
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Finally got a chance to do a little more work on the track...
I need to tighten it up with some Bondo.
My question is, do I need to provide power directly to the lane changers?
Thanks for reading,
Heath
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MrFlippant
Unless you pay extra for properly conductive adhesive tape, it would be a good idea to provide power to the rails of the lane changers. That will ensure that they always have the power needed to work properly, even if tape breaks elsewhere. If you do get the conductive adhesive tape, which is about $10 rather than the regular tape at less than $5 a roll, you can just tape right across the lane changers and the power base track, and the tape will carry the power needed from the base to the tape and all the lane changers. You'll probably want at least one roll with which to patch the occasional break in tape.

Also, before you bondo in the lane changers and finish up the routing and taping, be sure to hook them all in a line to your power base, and make sure they are all working reliably. The last thing you want is to bondo in a lane changer and find that it's not working well. :\
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QUOTE (MrFlippant @ 23 Mar 2014, 19:42) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Unless you pay extra for properly conductive adhesive tape, it would be a good idea to provide power to the rails of the lane changers. That will ensure that they always have the power needed to work properly, even if tape breaks elsewhere. If you do get the conductive adhesive tape, which is about $10 rather than the regular tape at less than $5 a roll, you can just tape right across the lane changers and the power base track, and the tape will carry the power needed from the base to the tape and all the lane changers. You'll probably want at least one roll with which to patch the occasional break in tape.

Also, before you bondo in the lane changers and finish up the routing and taping, be sure to hook them all in a line to your power base, and make sure they are all working reliably. The last thing you want is to bondo in a lane changer and find that it's not working well. :\

As usual Mr Flippant, excellent advice. I just spent the morning checking my lane changers and making sure the tape with conductive adhesive tape I purchased did indeed have conductive adhesive. It does. I also made some more progress on the track, getting in another xlc and a pit lane lc. Everything is just pressure fit right now.



As you can see, the pit lane came today
and is now routed into it's place. It's actually a left hand pit, so I am going to have to take it apart and change the solenoid, which I am told is not too bad. I also have a place cut for the second xlc, but have not routed it in completely yet.



This would go faster if routing out the spaces for the lane changers didn't leave such a horrible mess, but at least I'm almost finished with it.

I tried lifting up an edge, and it is still really floppy. I'm hoping when I cover the other side with MDF, it will be rigid enough, if not, I will do some light weight framing.

Thanks for reading.

Heath
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Ade
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Hi
Looking goid Heath,the extra little outlay for conductive backing is well worth it,just tape over the pb and all the lc sections and it will all power perfectly
this is how mine is done,I can run 6 cars using this method on a stock apb,tape has been down nearly two years and has run thousands of laps.

Now for the tricky part which you have yet to do,from experience I can say this,if you are using a 3mm cutter or 1/8th wich is very slightly bigger then you will have problems getting the routed slot to allign EXACTLY in line and the car will jump into the air a little on entry to the lc section,trust me on this I pulled much hair on getting this right.

First off with the male lugs removed bend in a little the horizontal piece of rail before you install the lc section,now route upto the lc section with a 2mm or imperial version,now you can finish off the slot into the lc with glass paper for a precise finish,takes a little longer to do but well worth the effort.
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