[subarumy98]

HI All

Friend of mine is running Challenger on a small Ninco based home track. Apart from keeping everything clean and oiled, is it possible to speed the car up. He reckons he has mastered both the slow and fast speed settings.

How about a small magnet behind the guide or hotter motor ? Any ideas or suggestions at this stage ?

T

 

[astro]

have u already experimented with the classic/sport switch on the bottom? if it learns and races on classic, it is a lot faster than on 'sport'

the other tip i have read about but not tried, is increasing the voltage on it's tack. People who have tried this say it is most reliable on 12V, but goes faster with higher voltage

 

[Maverick]

QUOTE (astro @ 27 Jan 2004, 05:35 PM)the other tip i have read about but not tried, is increasing the voltage on it's tack. People who have tried this say it is most reliable on 12V, but goes faster with higher voltage
I confirm that point. I am using a variable DC power supply and you can play with the voltage to make it faster. Unfortunately the right voltage will depend of your track layout and your track type (Ninco does have a better grip than Sport scalex).
I guess the best tip which have worked for me so far is sanding the rear tires. It changed my life

. Since I did it my Challenger deslots very rarely and I was able to increase the voltage. I am currently running it on a 16V setting (substract 1.2V since it's a DC power supply plugged on a Sport Scalex Power base) and I run it on slow mode. On fast mode, the car tends to deslot after a few laps. My track layout is about 13 meters with standards R2 curves, a long straight and an hairpin.

Cheers,
Maverick.

 

[moped rider]

I understand that some folk have the desire to make Challenger "faster" but how about the opposite angle.

How about tips on making your cars that you race against Challenger slower!

There is a racer on an SCX thread who admits that his circuit is a small home circuit and he detunes his cars to make them more fun for his circuit. Not everybody wants to go faster.

Maybe somebody should start a new thread along these lines?

Some folk like to detune their cars for example by taking the magnets out. The challenge then is to create a car without magnets that can compete against an out of the box Challenger on "slow mode" with stock Scaley power.

Also remember that the Scaley Ford Focus and NASCAR Pontiacs and Lotus 7 and cars of that ilk are not going to beat Challenger in standard trim no matter how good a racer you are. So its all about balance. If you detune a car and practice with that it will make you a much better racer according to some folk here.

Moped

 

[astro]

due to a curvy, bumpy, carpet-underlaid circuit, my challenger was coming off to much. I added a scaley thin bar magnet under the rear axel, which solved this, and I think slowed the car down, although I couldnt get a lap or lap time b4 this mod, so maybe the computer compensated.

But the voltage thing should work in reverse to slow it down, ie turn the voltage below 12 V to reduce its speed, though I guess at some point there will not be enough voltage to power the chip inside it.

 

[Mecoprop]

QUOTE turn the voltage below 12 V to reduce its speed
This is one of the areas where Pacer scores well.
Its facility to reduce speed or increase it, is built in to the power supply track so that the Pacer car can be fine tuned AFTER being taught its lap. The beauty of this is that the adjustments can be made at any time, on any part of the circuit, without limitation.

It seems to me that a development of Challenger could perhaps be similarly built in to the so-called 'smart key' which at present seems to possess no actual smartness at all. Maybe it is not practical for one reason or another, but the idea of adjustability is a good one.

 

[moped rider]

Have I not read in other topics or at other sites about folk who do have adjustable voltage and who have adjusted the voltage to the lane that Challenger runs in?

Whilst it no doubt can be done something inevitably will suffer or be compromised as a result longer term. Folk who just run one layout can do things with Challenger specifically for their circuit and therefore create a purpose built Challenger.

However, if like me you consider creating different circuits as being one of the fun parts of the hobby, then Challenger is the perfect companion and is always available.

Pacer is not as perfect as some folk here make out as, unlike Challenger, Pacer does not know where the car is on the circuit relative to its position, so as the performance of the car changes through heat and increased resistance, Pacer cannot recognise this and the car then runs funny and, for example, accelerates where is should not on a complex circuit.

Pacer is OK for short simple circuits. For anything longer and complicated it is out of its depth.

Moped

 

[astro]

not sure what your point is, moped.

As for suffering in the long term, electronic components and devices have an operating range of voltages, and outside of this i expect there is some risk of long-term damage. It would be good to know what this range is, but tweaks of a couple of +/- a couple of volts would probably be fine

 

[Mecoprop]

This isn't a competition between products.
Pacer is certainly not perfect and no one has suggested that it is.
But it does enjoy certain definite advantages as pointed out.
Nor is Challenger perfect either.
For instance, I don't believe that Challenger is any more proof against heat and resistance etc, but am open to correction on this. If Challenger actually 'knows where it is on the circuit', then one must wonder how could it ever make a mistake?

 

[Swissracer]

Challenger is the same as Pacer when it comes to knowing where it is on a circuit.
Neither do.
If the opposite were true you could simply replace the Challenger car on the circuit where it came off instead of having to restart the race.
There is no doubt that Challenger is a leap forward regarding Pacer (also great in its day as Moped loved to point out at the time if I recall right?) but yes it still has limitations as one would expect from a piece of electronic hardware with so many variables.
If you increase the Voltage, it appears to simply run faster and is therefore a little more unreliable. IF I had read the instructions first

I would have known that running it on 14.8volts was the sole reason it didn't like my graduated radius curves...