Have been messing around with the idea of making my own terminal tracks and have been practicing soldering to the rails on a pile of 9 inch 1/4 turns. (You had to know those were good for something :) ) Anyway, thru lack of experience in soldering, or just not having the right iron, I haven't been able to get it. Always end up either melting the plastic, or getting a really poor solder joint. Usually both.

Now its not a major issue for me to just use the standard Tomy terminals. I only tried soldering my own jumpers as a learning experience, and not because I felt that I really needed my own terminal tracks. The track works fine in its out of the box form, considering I'm not running high end Wizzards or Slottechs or whatever. Plus the track is short enough that it works fine without additional power taps.

But then I came across this last night, a way to do jumpers without soldering. Here's the link. http://www.supervipersystems.com/VargoSpeedway/HO_Tech/Power_Taps/power_taps.html

Maybe some of you have seen this before, but its new to me. Curious what your thoughts are on this method. Possible pitfalls, stuff that could crop up later, etc.

What do you think?

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It sounds like a great idea,but it wouldn't take very long at all for the connections to become almost worthless due to the reasons AFX2 mentioned.A lot of work for nothing as I see it.
I would like to try to devise a way to be able to hook up power taps with something that clips onto the rails,Naybe someone already has???

I back tracked on the website and looked at some of the other tips and construction ideas.Check out this contraption:

http://www.supervipersystems.com/VargoSpeedway/HO_Tech/gravitytimer/gravitytimer.html

Looks like something from the old board game "Mouse Trap".


Mike

Hey that's my stuff you guys are talking about! Yep that gravity timer was a real thing and worked. Albeit not very well though but it was a cool contraption before we had a computer.

"It sounds like a great idea,but it wouldn't take very long at all for the connections to become almost worthless due to the reasons AFX2 mentioned.A lot of work for nothing as I see it."

:confused: It's a shame you've taken that attitude about my power taps without actually trying it. The hook ups work very well and have been working for a couple of years now. It is 18 ga wire crimped very tightly at the rail and the wires themselves fold under the track before going through the table. The fact that the track sits on top of the wires prevents it from moving. Also, the connection has dielcetric grease to aid the connection and prevent dirt from interfering. My club track is nearly 83 feet long and I have a power tap every 10 feet or so. The power is from a Lambda 0-30 volt, 10 amp filtered power supply. The power is great and very smooth. About the only thing that could improve the connections would be the silver filled epoxy I put a link to here somewhere. That would eliminate any chance of the connection coming lose.

I'd be happy to answer any questions you have about the power taps.

Scott Vargo

Well,I have many years of experience working with the wiring in guitars,guitar amps,radios and just about anything electronic that I feel inclined to tinker with.Any time I've ever tried crimping a wire to something on it's own I've had it come back down the road to bite me in the you know what.I have tried it many times before,just not on slot car track.So for me personally,tho I think your idea is a good one,it's not for me.
But it works great for you,and that is all that really matters.

I didn't mean to sound as tho I was knocking your gate.I actually think that the ideas that you have are quite clever.Sorry if you took it the wrong way.

Mike

No problem Mike- You can knock the old Mousetrap gate all you want- It was quite a novelty. :tongue:

I just didn't want others to be mislead about the power tap idea as it does work. Better than any other solution I have come up with, including soldering. Most solder connections I've done to a plastic track breaks lose if you move the track piece or wire. In my connection, because the wire is twisted tightly around the rail and then bent under, it does not move at all. Plus, my layout is pretty permanent. Perhaps if someone was to move their track often or disturb the wires then the connections may eventually suffer.

If you look on Wizzard BBS there is an article from the man himself on how to solder wire to plastic track without damaging it. :thumbsup:

AFXtoo, I followed the link and see what you mean about soldering the brass slats on there. That looks nice, tidy and solid. However I tried yanking the rail out of a curved piece and it wouldn't go back in properly. The idea was something like in that article, but instead of brass, I was gonna use another bit of rail from a different piece of track. I'm gonna try that this weekend when I get a bit of time. (Geez at this rate this track ain't gonna get finished until Judgement day!)

Mike I also see what you mean, but I'm thinking that pressure would probably be ok, considering that that's all that holds the rails together when you connect the track together. Unless you solder all the rails pieces together too. We'll see.

Hey Scott! Thanks for chiming in. Always good to hear from the originator of the article. I'm gonna give your way a shot too. Thanks for mentioning the grease. (I don't think that got mentioned in the article) Anyway, looks like a great option for the "soldering challenged" such as myself. BTW loved the Mousetrap gate! I've checked your site pretty well and must say you've got one of the nicest HO tracks I've seen. Maybe its just me, but it seems that many of the "serious racers" tend to have very plain tracks, often just mounted on naked plywood. Nice to see one that takes the racing seriously but still take the time to model the track to look like something. :thumbsup:


Trev

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Guess I will try it with a straight. I'd been avoiding that cuz I have a million spare curves, but only a few extra straights. Oh well. Into the breach!

To Slott V, don't take anything too personally here. This is a great board with a few scholarly types. Playing Devil's Advocate with a new idea is something we do, and AFXtoo's the best of them (I always wanna call him "the Professor") He's also been one to say "dude, its a slot track, you're thinking too hard", although he's usually more eloquent about it.

Thanks everyone

I saw some conductive epoxy recently. If your layout is permamnet it might do the jub.

Roger Corrie

Didn't mean to come off thin skinned or anything like that. Most of you guys are on other boards too and I usually speak my peace in my own way. Sometimes I come off the wrong way. :cool: This place is a great BBS and I used to come here years ago before they closed down the Slot Car section and then brought it back. I run my own motorsport related BBS also, that is popular with HO slot car people:
Planet of Speed Bench Racing Network (http://planetofspeed.net/BBS)

Thanks for the comments guys. Hope some of our crazy ideas work for others. There's so many ideas I'd like to add to the site but time always comes at a premium lately with my job and I also just bought a house so it's kept me pretty busy. After 3 months of home improvements I have finally gotten to rebuilding my track after the move. It is almost up and running. :)

I've raced on CNC routed tracks and they are awesome. But for a hobby/home track, detailing is where it's at with my group. There are 3 guys with large tracks and 2 are super-detailed. The latest is running with a computer timing system but the landscaping hasn't been started yet. Once we get that going we're going to photograph the progress and then redo my site and build a main website for the groups' tracks. We still build fast tracks and cars, but the guys in my group dig racing with buildings, billboards and trees rushing by in the background. It's cool when you're going hyperspeed and the background stuff is a blur while you're "zoomed" in on your HO bullets.

after soldering the wires to the bottom of the track, its a good idea to GLUE part of the wire itself to the track to keep from pulling the soldered wire loose, I did this to mine with "Shoe Goo" made by goop,Awesome stuff, you will NOT pull a wire loose on my track