Slot car testing facilities

While tinkering with various cars I found the Scalextric track circuit, even a small oval, to be a far from perfect test environment. The addition of a Scalextric "Pacer" gives you a great facility for running in. There are times though, when a bench test facility is needed. To that end I have made a rolling road which I sometimes use in conjunction with a modified controller for hands free operation.

Rolling Road

I had been thinking about building a rolling road for some time, but every scheme I came up with was too complex to build. Then I came across a Scalextric "Rev Start" at a swap meet. This unit is intended to simulate the burning of rubber as cars rev up on the starting grid. A set of rollers lets you turn the wheels on the grid as you pump the throttle, without the car moving. The burning is simulated by a smoke generator under the track. To start the race you throw the red switch, which lowers the rollers from the wheels and cuts the power to the smoke generators.

The rolling road is a conversion of a Scalextric "Rev Start" unit.

My conversion was simple. I removed the smoke generators, which I will put to good use on my model railway. The rev start is now reduced to a set of rollers. Add a power base, transformer and throttle and you are in busines. I opted to go a little further. I drilled three holes in the side and added connecors for the power supply and throttles. This gives me a self contained unit, which doubles as a power base if you want to incorporate it into a track circuit.

Note that it is wired so that the cars run in the oposite direction to the arrow on the track. This is so that when the unit is used on it's own the front wheels do not hang over the edge. A side effect of this is that the rollers tend to drop. I simply fixed this by wedging the operating switch in the rollers UP position with blu tak.

Modified Throttle

This gadget evolved over time. At first I just wanted to be able to set a car going and leave it. This was for running in or to race against when no other driver was available. I took a standard controller and removed the return spring. The trigger could then be left in the desired position and the car would just run.

So far so good, but every time I stopped the car I had to fiddle about to get the trigger position right again. I added an off switch. Now the trigger could be left where it was. The switch would start and stop the car.

The final addition came about because my daughter (then 4) wanted to race me. She just buried the trigger of course, and I had to dig my cars out of the wall. I needed some means to slow her down. The obvious answer was a resistor in series with her controller. Why not use another controller? That way it will be adjustable and I know it will handle the power. I already had one with the return spring removed ....

So to satisfy my kids need for speed I added a jack socket. The modified controller connects between the power base and the original controller. Set the trigger on the modified to limit the speed available from the original controller. The socket is wired in series with the switch and resistor. The extra contact is used to make sure that current still flows when a second controller is not plugged in.