[Ronan]

I thought I'd post some photos of my new routed 3 lane track which I recently got up and running! The first pics are of the track just after routing was done, and since then I've sanded, filled and painted the slots, painted the surface and added the sides, laid the tape, wired her up and now it's working beautifully!

I'm using a Racecontrol sensorbox which is working a treat, and the slot man software is great, with a car database and so on.

Obviously it's not called 3 rock mountain speedway due to it's elevation! The name comes from the south Dublin mountain (a large hill really) that overlooks our house. I was planing to elevate the main straight but I have 4 kids (7 year old son, 2 year old twins and a new daughter!) so I had precious little time as it was to work on it. Hence I decided to go for a flat layout for simplicity.

The lap record to date is 6.5 sec in the middle/red lane with my Racer Ferrari 312P NART (a beauty!), closely followed by a slot.it Porsche 956K (6.7 sec). I can totally see why slot.it and Racer are so highly regarded, they are excellent straight out of the box on a wood track. My Fly's drone around like tractors but now that the track is ready to use I'll be busy fettling them to run more smoothly!

I have a ton of superb scenic items which I will now start to add to the track in stages, so I hope in time it will really acquire a nice landscaped look.

My 7 year old son and me have already had some terrific races on it and it beats plastic by a country mile! My 2 year old twins (Abigail and Mark, Mark Donohoe that is! I'm amazed my wife let me away with picking that name! LOL!) love it too and with the voltage turned down to 4.5 on their lanes they can drone around all day long with no deslots, plus they make for a neat "rolling chicane"! LOL!

Of course there is no Dublin based slot racing scene that I know of, but maybe in the future I might get hooked in with like minded local enthusiasts as I'd say it would be fun to have a race meeting on the track.

I'd love to hear back some comments/suggestions about the track which I hope is going to be an ongoing project for me and the kids.

Also if possible could one of the mods add the track to the members track index? That would be great!

 

[Graham Lane]

Blimmin brilliant! Lovely to get your kids involved like that. Nice layout and looks like good fun to drive.

 

[Ronan]

QUOTE (Graham Lane @ 28 May 2008, 17:30) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Blimmin brilliant! Lovely to get your kids involved like that. Nice layout and looks like good fun to drive.

Thanks Graham!

Glad you like it! I got out of 1:18th diecast collecting last year (after 11 years at it and nearly 900 models...) precisely because it was not a kid friendly hobby and I worried constantly about them getting their hands on them! So far so good anyway! Hopefully I'm bringing up a new generation of slot enthusiasts! LOL!

It is nice to drive too, fast and smooth and the more laps I put on it the better the grip gets. A whole lot of fun!

 

[knoath]

Power supply to each lane? Lovely!
Tell us about them, how many volts, variable, amps etc...

A nice collection of cars there, Ronan!

 

[Ronan]

QUOTE (knoath @ 28 May 2008, 20:18) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Power supply to each lane? Lovely!
Tell us about them, how many volts, variable, amps etc...

A nice collection of cars there, Ronan!
Thanks Dick! Having individual power supplies is a must when letting the twins (aged 2) at it! I can blast away in the middle lane at 10v while the twins have fun in the outer lanes at 4.5v

I have to say your track was one of many great wooden home 3 lane tracks that gave me some great ideas! Next up is the scenery part and I'll be reviewing your thread again closely!

The power supplies are great items with lots of adjustment possible which I bought from Maplin online. Here is a link to their webpage on them:

Maplin compact bench power supply

Glad you like the cars too! I'm afraid I'm getting addicted to buying slot cars just like I was with 1:18th diecast.... At least Racers are not as expensive as Exotos (for the most part!) LOL! After 11 years of big time 1:18th collecting I decided enough was enough as the house was over flowing with them and I was broke keeping up with the new releases, but they have been selling well on ebay which has financed the new slot car habit and much more besides.

When I get the time I plan to start photographing the new slot car collection as I used to do with my 1:18ths.

 

[Mark0]

Very nice. And later if you want to you can simply cut and wedge in elevation. I especially like your wiring job! Very nice.

Bests,

 

[Ronan]

QUOTE (Mark0 @ 29 May 2008, 15:47) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Very nice. And later if you want to you can simply cut and wedge in elevation. I especially like your wiring job! Very nice.

Bests,

Thanks Mark! You are right too, at a later date when perhaps I have more time I could get out the jigsaw and elevate the straight perhaps. For now though I'm very happy with how it runs and as I landscape it I hope it's appearance will come alive.

Glad you like the wiring! I followed Luf's instructions to the letter on connecting power to the track, and that has worked really well. I used two ninco powerbases for connectors and the sensors for the racecontrol box are just held in place with duct tape. (Which I also used to tidy some of the wiring up!). If the tape starts to sag then I might use some hot glue to secure the sensors with, but for now they are working fine.

 

[Ronan]

I've been busy painting borders and some markings for the start/finish area of my track, plus I've also started putting together some Bauer card pit buildings too. I'm waiting for a bunch of Fly pit wall sections in the post to finish off the pit area (nicely I hope!).

Here are some photos of the start/finish and pit area as it currently is with some of my collection.

 

[CJA]

Nice track Ronan, and quite a nice set of cars too !!.

VBR Chris a.

 

[Ronan]

Thanks Chris!

I'm a bit of a collector unfortunately (for my bank balance!) but all of my cars get some use at least on the track!

 

[Ronan]

On Saturday last I had a couple of friends over for some slot racing (a rare treat, I wish there were more slot heads near me!) and I tried taking some video. Most of it was crappy in the extreme, but I made a short film clip of the track in action with some slot.it Porsches, Alfas and a Ferrari 312PB.

It's a first attempt at video but I hope to try again with more success the next time!
First attempt at video of my slot track in action

 

[taxi]

Great looking track Ronan, just shows that a track doesn't have to be huge to look great. The paint work really brings it to life, can't wait to see what else you have planned.

cheers,

Rob

 

[Slotcarmann]

Hi Ronan

Very impressive and everything looks so neat. The sort of thing I'm aiming for, as my main track, where the fast cars can stretch their legs. How long is your back straight?

I've found the NSR Mosler is even faster than my Racers (5.2 sec versus 6.8 sec), but that's on my twisty Scaley Sport Track with the magnets in, max straight 6ft 6in.

What sort of controllers are you using?

The Maplin power supplies could be just what I'm after - did you get one for each lane?

Must check on Luf's track build for for some tips and the electrics.

I've 6 grandkids and the 3 older ones (1 a girl - the eldest at 9) enjoy whiling away an hour or so on my current temporary track....there's another arrival due sometime towards the end of January....and rumour has it that it may be a boy, so I have the best possible excuse for getting my track sorted this Spring with plenty of willing helpers to assist with the build and scenery (at least the non-technical bits

).

Cheers
Dave

 

[Ronan]

QUOTE (taxi @ 22 Dec 2008, 12:01) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Great looking track Ronan, just shows that a track doesn't have to be huge to look great. The paint work really brings it to life, can't wait to see what else you have planned.

cheers,

Rob

Thanks Rob!

I'm very happy with the way the painted borders came out I have to say, they took a couple of days to do but really brought the track to life I think.

The room the track is in is long but narrow which limited the options I had for layouts, but I'm glad you agree it looks good!

Next job is to finish the pit area for which I've already done quite a bit of work but I need to fix the buildings in place, complete the pit walls and add more advertising signs which I have ready to go. Then I plan to finish the area around the Nurburgring tower with scenic grass and a tree or two, and I have some slotcar scenics brackets for adding some scalextric barriers I have.

As many before me have noted too, it is hard to concentrate on the track once you can run cars on it though! I'd also like to take some better video footage too! LOL!

Looking forward to seeing your next routed track too!
Thanks,
Ronan

 

[Ronan]

Glad you like it Dave!

The total length of the table is 16 feet, so I think the straight is about 14 feet long. It is fun to nail the throttle getting on the straight!

I started with Parma economy 45 Ohm controllers which I thought were nice, but of course they were not sensitive enough for many of the more powerful cars and for the slot.its in particular I found nothing was happening until I pulled the trigger more than halfway.
I still use them for when the younger kids are playing with the track (they have proven resistant to sticky fingers!) and overall they are a good buy I think.

I decided to upgrade to a trio of professor motor controllers (direct from their site, as you can see here: http://www.professormotor.com/cat_controls.shtml ) which I got with adjustable brake and throttle sensitivity pots (which are great I have to say!). I find them to be excellent and I've noted the lap times are faster with them.

I haven't got any NSR cars yet, but I'm keen to try them. I reckon with the right urethane rubber tyres the NSR Mosler would probably take the lap record on this track.

Yes indeed, I bought three of the more compact Maplin bench power supplies and I've found them to be excellent! For the grown ups and my older son Rory at the moment we use 12v, but for my 3 year old twins I tend to set the voltage at 4.5v which allows them to travel around at full throttle and still make it through the tighter turns. It is a handy feature when you want to run some fast laps and let the terrible twosome play at the same time!

Email me any time ([email protected]) and I'll give you as much boring detail as I can about Luf's routing kit, what I did with it and how I wired it all up (in a nutshell I used Ninco powerbases as seen on Luf's routing instruction DVD).

That is great your eldest 3 grandkids enjoy working on the track with you! I'm really looking forward to when the twins are a little older and then they as well as Rory and me can actually run some proper races. My 3 year old daughter is the most keen on the track I have to say and I'd say within the next 12 months she will grasp the intricacies of the bit between off and full throttle! LOL!

 

[munter]

As I am between tracks I enjoyed the video,thanks very much.
You have caught the essence of good cars on a good wooden track very well.
John

 

[Ronan]

QUOTE (munter @ 23 Dec 2008, 05:36) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>As I am between tracks I enjoyed the video,thanks very much.
You have caught the essence of good cars on a good wooden track very well.
John

Thanks John! Glad you enjoyed it!

Over the Christmas break with the help of my 8 year old son I hope to take some more photos and video to post here. I have quite a large collection of cars now so I'm really keen to add more scenery to the track now and start taking some group photos of cars on it.

 

[Ronan]

I've been working on the scenery end of things and I've just finished adding in a lighted Sunoco sign as well as grass, bushes, trees, the lot. Now that I finally started doing some landscaping I'm enjoying it in a big way! Here are some photos of what I've done so far:

 

[joegraphix]

looking good... filling up the space nice i see.

 

[Ronan]

QUOTE (joegraphix @ 14 Jan 2009, 00:48) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>looking good... filling up the space nice i see.

Thanks Joe! That's the idea anyway!

Next job however is to get 3 different proxy cars ready in time to post them off (1 to Australia and 2 cars to the States). Then I'll get back to the scenic work.