you would loose a lot of money as soon as you turn it on

 

A control unit is about 15 euro. So hey, who cares.

I think nothing much will happen. Digital signals will probably interfere, resulting in cars / lanechangers not reacting like they should.

It might even be that, if all controllers go in the same CU, you wouldn’t notice anythung. 2nd CU won’t be putting a lot of signals on the track.


one way to find out.

 

I would expect one, or both, CUs to immediately go into some kind of overload/protection mode and refuse to work... if you're lucky.

15 euros for a D132/124 Control Unit? Where?

 

www.modellbau-metz.com

Oh, I lied: € 15,20.

 

Holy moly! They must break up a TON (literally) of sets in order to have so many of those that they are trying to get rid of them so cheaply.

Carrera Digital 124/132 Control Unit -- LOSE -- - Modellbau Metz - Slotcars - RC Modellbau und mehr

Carrera Digital 124/132 Control Unit -- LOSE --

www.modellbau-metz.com

 

yes , the last time i bought one it was 60 euro, holy moly

 

Connecting a second CU would be a dream come true if I could control and race 12 cars at the same time. Unfortunately, this is not possible. From my understanding, each car has its own frequency, and I know that you have only six different. But it would be a great question to ask the people behind the product. You can find them on LinkedIn. They are responsive and kind. I am sure that they can give you more insights.

 

Hi,
It's possible to drive with more cars, 12, 18 or 24! but you have to add a CU.Your track must instead 2 lanes convert to 4, 6, or 8 lanes (the same as by analoge) Each two lanes are separate from the other one's. With a remote and a couple of interfaces you can control all CU together, for start en Stop. See for more information: www.softlok.eu

 

You would occasionally get clashed and incoherent packets… occasionally. The rest of the time (maybe 90- 95%) since the duty cycle is mostly power (+V) you would get a steady voltage which will completely block any data transfer at all. In short, I think nothing would happen, and nothing would work. It is a completely useless pursuit.

 

Enough theory, anyone brave enough to put it to the test?

 

Brave? I am sure no one is silly enough.

If you want to add more drivers you will find yourself re-writing the CU firmware. Are you an embedded software or hardware engineer? If not then probably a bit much to take on. Others have tried and given up.

 

Look at posting #4, that will happen.
If your are lucky both will survice, if you are unlucky both will die.
It`s like a high noon duel...

If you disconnect the lanes from the CU part you can use it as a straight.
But straights you can get for 1-2€ from the used market.

If you want to have 4 (or more Lanes) for lapcounting you will need Multistartlane(s): 20030370

 

in carrera manual it states not to install an evolution ( anolog ) set with a digital set ,as it may cause irreversible damage and not be covered under warranty
BUT it does not say anything about connecting 2 digital units .
i,m assuming they do not think it warrants mentioning
on the same grounds

 

I don’t think anyone is saying or hoping that putting two CU’s in one track would add up to 12 drivers. That’s plain silly.

Topic starter is just wondering: what would happen.

We still don’t know, we’re only guessing.

That’s where the bravery, or in your words, sillyness is coming in.

 

as i know nothing about electronics all i can do is guess
if a cu puts 12 volts to the rails ,i would assume that if you connected another cu to the same rails you would be trying to put 24 volts to the rails
as the cu would not cope with such voltage it more than likely go into overload and shut down
in the mean time one ,maybe both cu units could die
as i previously stated ...costing you a lot of money ,or in other terms ,about 6 slot cars

 

It wouldn’t be 24 volts, it would be 12 volts in parallel. But as previously stated the digital packets would get blocked and confused. If you can develop a WiFi type system to communicate from hand controller then it might be possible. Good luck.

 

Nah, you would still put 12V on the rails. Parallel vs. series. This would be a parallel circuit.

Ah well, we all agree this thing won't fly. We're just not sure about the failure-mode.

 

Nah, you would still put 12V on the rails. Parallel vs. series. This would be a parallel circuit.

Ah well, we all agree this thing won't fly. We're just not sure about the failure-mode.

I've had a look at the schematic (It's copyrighted so I can't share it here) and its a little more complex than I'd have thought it would be. Reading circuit analysis on another forum suggests that when the output MOSFET is not driving the rail high then its actually pulled low (to stop the various activities on the rails to cause other problems) In which case, you would certainly trigger the protection mode each and every time you would power the system up. Possibly break the output mosfet and other transistors if you kept trying it.

If the limitations of the Carrera system are making you consider experiments like this then you might be better to look at a higher end system. I've often wondered about using the ID 7 and 8 as extra driver cars... But to implement lane changing would be quite complex. And for fuel usage - forget it. There was a project called openslot that attempted to rewrite the firmware and add extra features. They never got past the beta stage and eventually the project website disappeared. I have seen photos of a club in Germany that had two identical circuits (mirror images of each other), with one common (custom built and written) timing system. But again, you'd be better off with a more advanced or serious system.

 

Bommel says: go Oxigen.