Portable Digital Routed Track

26345 Views 113 Replies 29 Participants Last post by Graham Lane, May 15, 2008

jmswms

Discussion Starter · Sep 22, 2007 (Edited by Moderator)

I've been thinking about experimenting with a portable digital routed (PDR) track. The easiest approach, I think, would be to rout the track, and then drop in the plastic digital pieces. Given my constraints, it would have to be portable. I'm thinking that two 5'x3' sections combining to make 10'x3' (that is about 3.5m x 1m) would make a significant size for fun racing, but small enough to put in the back of my van or store under my current table. I'm thinking (of course) of a rally type track with some small elevation changes. Here are two preliminary plans that I drafted. I'm leaning toward plan #2 because it's simpler to make as my first go at this. I'd love to have any comments or suggestions.

PLAN #1

PLAN #2

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RobBG

· #26 · Mar 4, 2008

I am a big slot rally fan and when I moved all I kept was a few bits of track and especially the more rally specific stuff.

Where I am now the only space I have is 10' x 2' so you can see why I am so interested in this project - especially after watching the build of your last track.

I am hoping to build this under a kitchen worktop bench that has two lift of sections to reveal the track beneath.

My problem at the moment is working out how to get enough track to make it worth the bother in that space - my previous 8' x 3'6" track was just about as small as I think would be fun. That said any track is better than no track isn't it.

I had hoped to stay with my SCX track but am struggling to design anything worth doing to fit 2' wide

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RobBG

· #27 · Mar 4, 2008 (Edited by Moderator)

Here is what I had before and is about 2/3rds of the track pieces I kept. The borders were just 6mm MDF - worked great. The SCX rally box is a great addition and one I am keen to keep - the timing makes a world of difference to the fun factor.

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RobBG

· #29 · Mar 9, 2008

Hi

I know you are right and that it will be pretty hard with plastic but I do have the advantage in one way of not wanting to seperate lanes and have no need for space for overtaking. I need to find the box from my house move and see what I can layout and the software I use (TrackPower) does not have some of the track pieces that I want to use.

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RobBG

· #31 · Mar 9, 2008 (Edited by Moderator)

This is about the best I have come up with so far using SCX and a few bits of Scalectrix classic too ...

The weird track part is ...

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RobBG

· #32 · Mar 10, 2008

The easy way to do this is of course to go for a single level (flat) design - but as has been pointed out I am VERY restricted to what I can do in my 2'x10' box.

I decided to play about with a bit of elevated track design and using a few r2 lane changers too get some nicer radius bits going on. Here is where I am so far but it's a little over length so I need to lose a bit somewhere ...

what do we think ?

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