Hi all,

Thanks for all your suggestions and help in my first thread: Yet another newbie - Dad with another Midlife Crisis (http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/showthread.php?t=99030)

I had the day off work Monday and was pleasantly surprised to find my new AFX International set had arrived in the mail. I opened the box and went right to work. I wanted to set the track up off the ground about table height, so used a left over piece of plywood that we purchased when the hurricanes went through.

The track setup was fun, my 9 year old daughter would find the track sections for me, and I'd follow the layout the best I could. After numerous mistakes and fixes we finally had two lanes that actually met at the end. The other two lanes were easier because it was a bit easier having the first two lanes as a reference. Oh, I forgot to mention... we started off trying Italy, but that was too bit for 4'x8'. Then we tried another and it was too big. I finally got out the ruler and did some quick scaling and found that the Brazil track would be close. We got it to work, with half a lane hangover on each side.

My daughter was ready to go, but I insisted that we put the guard rails up and finish the job. She already had her car picked out. I was having fun doing the setup myself. I wanted to clean up the mess, but my daughter was so patient so we plugged it in and went! Of course we had multiple airborne-car situations until we got used to the controls. I loved it, and she was pretty good from the start. I guess kids have better reflexes than I do.

After 30 minutes of practice and fun the pefectionist/obsessive compulsive part of me wanted to "fix" the track. I carefully checked all lanes for bad alignment and fixed them. I used small pieces of cardboard under the track in various locations to get the height uniform all the way around. Adjusting guard rails based on my practice and crash experience.

At this point I had the entire family interested, so my wife, and both my daughters were out there having some fun. We tried to do some quick 5 lap races, and had some success, and many failures with crashes. I was learning that on my setup, the two middle lanes seemed the easiest. The two outer lanes were much more difficult to the point where my daughters would beat me quite easily when on center lanes. We raced for quite a while before I was ready for more "tweaking".

I put up a retaining wall made of cardboard and duct tape after the straight stretch to keep the cars from launching too far. Now I'm finding each "weak-point" for each lane and re-locating the appropriate controller close to that spot. This is more fun than I thought it would be.

My daughter and I raced for a while tonight. We each spend much time on the center lanes because they are very close as far as difficulty level. We had many side by side adrenaline rush situations. I'm having fun and learning a lot of the things you all mentioned to me.

The most important thing I've learned is that this is going to be a *constantly* evolving process, and not some magic set-it-up-perfect the first time process. No matter how much research I do, there is no substitute for experience.

I already know that I don't care for the super tight corner sections, particularly if they involve inside lane of 3 or more "J" sections of track. It is really hard for me to stay on the track, I can see I will need a lot of experience with varying the speed.

I did a lot of practicing tonight, and I begin to notice something and wonder if it is coincidence or not. My wife and I had some serious racing going, many laps of neck to neck, and if one of us slides off the track it seems the other car will almost immediately after. I begin to wonder if the power load stoppage on one track causes voltage surge on another causing the secondary crash... time will tell on that one. We were both racing on different two lane sections, so it should have been an different power supply.

After only two days into this I am very happy with the purchase. Thank you all again for the suggestions. I'll be reading the forums over the next days to learn more, particularly about lap counter solutions.

Take care,
Rich

hi

what you notice with the power surges is because the wallwarts (slotter slang for set transformers) are seriously underpowered. when one car flies off the other car all of a sudden recieves more electrical power, often resulting in deslotting. this can be solved 1) by spending $120 or so for a wiz bang power supply or 2) buying additional wallwarts so that each lane is powered by an individual transformer (this requires using additional power supply track sections, each lane will have its own power supply track section and power supply).

if your in this hobby for long term, you want the wiz bang power supply. slot cars are DC motors, and line voltage is AC. the wallwarts do not provide very clean DC, and that can cause the motors to run hotter and may reduce the life of your pickup shoes. an occansional racer might never notice the difference, but youve already figured out the power surge due to underpowered wallwarts. the wallwarts put out something like 500-800 milliamps at 18 volts. a wiz bang power supply will be regulated and filtered and put out a very nice DC voltage, and will be variable (letting you change the voltage) and will have about 10 amps (more than 10X the power of a wallwart). each stock car will want about 1 amp or less, highly modified cars can pull several amps a piece. so 10 amps for a 4 lane track is good. i bought one of these:

http://www.slotcars.org/hodra/ag&gProducts2.htm

now that youve played with super G's, you want to try a tomy turbo, a tyco 440X2, a tomy SRT, a patriot, and maybe a lifelike (i personally dont like lifelikes). marchons are very good, they have very strong stock magnets and bare chassis can be had for under $4. these chassis, when combined with a light weight lexan body, are very fast and very cheap. http://www.slotcarworld.com/HOindex.htm

that will set you up for magnet cars. you probably want a 35 ohm parma controller for those cars.

you also ought to try JLTO and JLXTs. those cars, particularly the JLTO, will require patience and fiddling, and a very high ohm controller (95-120 ohm). but they give you very fun fishtailing action, and you can get very detailed and cool body styles (1959 impala!!!) http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=2618&item=5947251632&rd=1 (http://www.qksrv.net/click-1606754-5463217?loc=http%3A//cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll%3FViewItem%26item%3D5947251632)

then you will need tools like a gear press, a wheel puller etc. and some silicone tires from supertires or weird jack.

have fun!!!

The most important thing I've learned is that this is going to be a *constantly* evolving process, and not some magic set-it-up-perfect the first time process. No matter how much research I do, there is no substitute for experience.

Excellent ... excellent ... excellent!!! You've really got it. As much as I admire some of the very fine soup-to-nuts websites and long winded guidance you'll find on the web (sorry!) there's absolutely no substitute for learning and discovering as you go and finding out what YOU like and what YOU don't like all by yourself. You're off to a great start.

Sounds like you will be enjoying all aspects of this fine hobby. Good luck and enjoy.

Welcome to our madness! :devil: Wait till your car collection diversifies and you run the gamut from Tjets to Pats. :eek: Talk about learning. :D: rr

sounds great , your havin a blast. i got tired of the power surges and ran a seperate power pak to each lane this really reduces my frustrations of cars flying all over when one leaves the lane.