[RichG]

Well actually a lot of people would love to have a slot car wizzing round on it's own, a couple of generations better than we have at the moment, to compete against.

However we all know that at the moment be it on a 1:1 track or a slot track without a driver you are not going to get very far. I guess some people just hate software & electronics, however I just thought it had a part to play in this Ultimate Tuning thread? So much for out of the box thinking......

Rich

 

[stoner]

No Rich it will come. All the top racers use expensive controllers with a lot of aids, its just progression! Good or bad the cream still floats to the top even if they had to use economy Parma,s with no add ons.
John

 

[GT6]

Computer controlled, self learning slot cars have been in development for several years now - do a search on "Student's Contest: Self-Driven Slot Car Racing"- here's a sample:
http://www.proceedings2008.imcsit.org/pliks/45.pdf
So this takes the inconsistant, slow reacting human out of the picture

, now we can put in motors with enough power that they are traction limited on both acceleration and braking (i.e. will apply power slightly beyon the point of wheelslip on acceleration and do the same under dynamic braking) - with the electronics keeping an eye on the traction both ways. All this thinking doesn't have to be onboard - telemetry can farm the heavy number crunching to a trackside Big Blue upgrade. What motor(s) - don't know - budget's unlimited! design something synchronous with supercooling and unobtaniuum exotic magnets that sucks as many amps as the rails can deliver without melting (to paraphrase of one of the great race car engineers of all time, Mark Donahue "if you can't get wheelspin at the end of the longest straight, you dont have enough power"). More traction? another giant of race car technology solved that, Jim Hall - think Chaparral J. Sucker fans - again as powerful as can fit under the bodywork - electronics cut downforce on the straights (again balanced to the traction limit) to maximize acceleration and spool up going into the corners. Oh, and if there's any space left, a subminature 4 wheel steering system - the telemetry lets the system smarts know where the car is on the track to sub millimeter accuracy and the accelerometrs tell it what's going on with the traction circle, steering and power inputs. And where's the hoomin in all this? He/she gets to flip the ON switch

cheers
Scott

 

[Bigtone]

I'm not sure that a slot car would travel far enough to generate any worthwhile power fo extra accellaration or braking. The limiting factor is still the size and weight of a suitable storage cell to make it worth doing. I had the opportunity to drive Gary Fletchers flywheel car and it required a different driving style, it was very smooth and steady through the corners and gripped well. If you exceeded a a certain point it would just fly out of the slot with no warning by way of a slide, Gary always tried to get to the staet line last to try and keep the flywheel spinning

 

[Martyn_]

At the risk of being pilloried - a pair of electro-magnetic traction magnets, on to keep the guide slotted in the corners,off on the straights so as not to impeded acceleration.

Regarding the hand controllers - I have seen considerable improvements in laptimes with racers moving from standard Parmas,through Truespeeds with the two pots on top,on to the full blown multi-button electronic controllers. To quote Muddley Talker "Quite remarkable!"

 

[marctownsend]

I had been wondering when this thread was going to go electronic. The lack of data aquisition in slot cars mean we are still largely in the era of theoretical, hunch engineering.

Someone mentioned Hall's sucker car and when you look at the journey through the fan car and sliding skirts to Newey running last years Red Bull at a steep rake and sealing the edges of the diffuser with air directed from elsewhere, that voyage was made possible by measurement and simulation tools.

Of all the fantastic ideas on this thread that currently appear too complex or cumbersome to engineer into a slot car it may be that there is a more eligant solution if only we KNEW what was going on in enough detail.

Genuine closed loop traction control and stability control would maximise the potential of any car but you cant fool Newton!

Accelerometers measuring multiple axis and encoders for analysing rotating parts would be prohibitively difficult to package so computer simulation would be the tool of choice, ludicrously expensive for a tiny market but you did say money no object right?

Fantasic thread with loads of brilliant posts by the way, loving it.

Cheers.

 

[stoner]

as mentioned earlier, take a driver with a standard parma economy controller with no add ons[me] and then give the same driver a top of the range electronic controller and his lap times will tumble. so in reality the age of electronic aids is here. nobody wants a car that will drive itself just a bit of forgivness when you make a small error. big motored cars are virtually undriveable without an electronic controller helping the braking and acceleration On the pop up wing theory this could work mechanically, or electronically with a micro solenoid, activated by a button on the controller.The gear in hub and two motors driving each wheel lends itself to independant rear spings, talking of which how about using the shaft extension springs on the rear axle useining double slotted retainers with a bridge across the top. to allow springs top and bottom onto a double spiggoted bearing, to centralize the wheel and allow for up-down movement of the wheel. john

 

[slotcarscrapyard]

This is getting very interesting with some good ideas here.

Just to clarify the body details a bit - I was thinking take a standard hard body but after that its up to you really!
For example I often dremmel out a plastic body to shave a few grams and widen them up by either adding arche extensions or even quartering a body and adding plasticard to the middle to widen it etc. So I'm not neccessarily thinking of keeping a standard scale body here, but more of a representation of the original.

So for example, should you wish, you could add a rear wing which pops up at full speed etc, or a reverse air brake - what ever you think would benefit the car.

I agree that some slow motion footage of how a slot car under race conditions handles, twists and contorts would definately be of great use in understanding how to extract the best from the chassis, tyres etc. I think we could learn alot, for exampe, my nsr mosler got a second a lap quicker by adding suspension and handled much better, but when I tried the same sort of set up with my slot-it lola it was worse.

It seems most of what we do is trial and error - nothing wrong with that, but if we knew how a particular adjustment affected all the other parts of the car we could concentrate on just the effective tuning areas for that car.

The idea of electronic controlled ecu's for cars is another interesting area. Having a simple add-in ecu (like a digital chip) which could detect wheel spin and enhance braking for example shouldn't be that far off in theory.
The adea of working or active diffs could also be explored (in fact I'm suprised some of the 1/10 scale RC cars havent come up with a electronic controlled diff system, like a yaw (I think) control as in real cars.

Keep the sugestions comming, and all the slot makers out there - I hope your taking notes!

 

[Petr L]

Hi, did you read this? SLOT CAR TUNING TIPS FOR PLASTIC CHASSIS SLOT CARS

 

[stoner]

hy Petr L, i read this quite a while ago. its great reading for a novice tuner, but would be standard practice for the majoriy of tuners on this forum. has any body tried any of these idea,s even if it was 40years ago, i,d like to hear about them and your opinions. as i,ve said like slotcarscrapyard i,m only interested that the car looks somewhat similar to the original, but the body allways gets taken out to maximum width and as low as i can get it. john

 

[stoner]

I,d like one of the german specialist chassis manufacturers to make a carbon fibre base, that all the screw on parts could be bonded on, they could be reduced in thickness. think of the weight saving and strength youd gain. NDW are you reading this post. thats doable right now and should even bring the cost down. in the next couple of months i,m going to make one my self, just buying A motor mount and axle holders, in fact thinking about it, i may only buy the motor mount and make the rest my self. if anyone on the forum uses one of these chassis, would you measure the thickness of the base plate and the carbon fibre pieces for me. I,d be really greatfull. thanks john

 

[Bigtone]

Nearly finished, this group 12 saloon chassis and is my own design.The spine has a weighted centre section that slides up and down the car as it accelerates and brakes. The weighted cection is in two parts and hinged at the spine to it won't bind when the chassis flexes. It is extremley light and weighs in at under 4 ounces. with only the lead wire, braids, pinion and lexan body and iterior to add I hope it will come inat just over 4 ounces. It will be tested next week so I will let you know how it goes
Tony

 

[stoner]

thats very nice Big T. its the sort of thing nobody tries anymore. you might need a couple of springs either end to cushion the impact of the lead as it slides up and down so the shock doesn,t upset the chassis, Seeing as youv,e all ready made it, perhaps a couple of pieces of foam rubber, split to clip over the rail is a thought for the future. i also like the idependantly sprung big front wheels. it just adds class to a tripod chassis. thats what i like, come out with an idea and MAKE it. i,m waiting with a lot of interest, for your assesment of how it runs, congratulations! john

 

[300SLR]

Hi Tony
It will be interesting to hear how that moving weight works.
I think it would be interesting to experiment with limited movement of the weight and see what differance various settings make to the handling and lap times.

Incidentally, most modern group 12 saloon cars are under 3 1/2 ounces, so it might be worth trying reducing the weight.

 

[Bigtone]

Hi John, I do intend to put a small piece of foam rubber at each end of the spine to act as a damper. What you can't really see from the picture is that the guide is mounted on the frame connected to the motor pod and the T bar is separate and mounted on rails and hinged just in front of the motor. This gives the guide a small amount of up and down movement.

300SLR, I only weighed it on ordinary kitchen scales which only weigh i ounces and grammes so it is a bit of a guess at the weight. I have just ordered some digital scales but it would be very easy to loose weight from the car. I have thought of experimenting with different weights but hadn't considered limiting the movement

Tony

 

[Groomi]

There may be some worth in experimenting with a slipper clutch to aid traction when using one of the great sounding motors described on this thread. Likewise, as others have mentioned, some sort of moveable ballast could be used - moving side to side to stay on the inside edge of the car when cornering.

Someone on this site has previously experimented with a Brabham fan car which supposedly had some benefit, so purpose building a car with such a system in mind could be worthwhile.

 

[stoner]

good thinking Groomi, i have another idea about a moving weight. using a swinging arm with lead on the end. it would have to have a friction washer or other idea? to let it react quickly and stop the arm swinging wildly.the idea being it transfers weight to the outside edge when cornering. to the back when accerating and to the middle front when braking. i,m working on a dual slipper clutch that doubles as a diff, as well at the moment. ive got a bin full of different designs at the moment. john

 

[Bigtone]

I always thought it was better to keep any weight in a car as near to the centre as posible which is why I built the centre sliding weight c\r. It is now completely finished with a lexan Peugeot 307 body shell. The all up weight of the finished car is 3.21 ounces or 91.3 grammes whichever you prefer, I think I could probably get it down to 3 ounces dead witha little material removal. Will let you know how it goes after it's first run next Wednesday

 

[stoner]

COOL!Big T. the swinging weight was only a thought. can every one post their idea,s its food for thought and i,ll probably make chassis incorperating most of the ideas. and compare them to a controll chassis. not enough time in the day for this little lot/ john

 

[300SLR]

QUOTE (Groomi @ 17 Jul 2012, 12:45) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>... some sort of moveable ballast could be used - moving side to side to stay on the inside edge of the car when cornering.
QUOTE (stoner @ 18 Jul 2012, 12:39) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>....the idea being it transfers weight to the outside edge when cornering.
Conflicting ideas there!

Many cars work better with a lower c of g, maybe you'd expect moving weigh to the inside would be best for them.
Cars that are very short of grip are sometimes improved by a higher c of g, maybe you'd expect moving weigh to the outside would be best for them.

When cornering, moving weight naturally goes to the outside.
Moving weight to the inside is more difficult. Much the same effect as transferring weight to the inside can be produced by gyroscopic action (as in Gary Fletcher's car). The gyroscopic actions works instantly when the car starts cornering. Weight that takes time to move across the chassis would make much less difference when at the entry to a corner.