I just purchased a couple grandstands off of<a href=http://www.jdoqocy.com/click-1606754-2202639 target=_top > eBay! </a>
<img src=http://www.awltovhc.com/image-1606754-2202639 width=1 height=1 border=0>. I believe they are the AFX Revamatic. I hooked up a 9 volt battery and they made a loud rev noise. How are you supposed to hook these up to the track or controller?? There are 2 screws on the bottom; 1 controller and the other says (3 or 4). Did they have 4 lane setups when these were first sold? Any info would be helpful.

Thanks

I believe they get hooked up to the track, so the faster the car goes the higher the reving sound. Not sure when they were first sold, my guess would be early to mid 70's.

Aurora AFX Revamatic 500- 1974
Aurora Jackie Stewart Revamatic -1975

They suck power something fierce. I also have the old TycoPro "Sound of Racing" Tower. Same dealy. Have fun but you will disconnect them shortly. :freak:

I got two with my then-new AFX set, 1974. They hook up between the controller and the track, one per lane, so they make "motor" sounds that go up in pitch with more throttle. They did slow my cars way down, one more than the other, so they got unhooked quick. They also came with little replica flood light towers that mounted in little plastic box section on each top corner post, with loudspeakers that pressed on. Fragile and easily lost. I hope one day if I find an odd lot of parts that there may be another set.

I thought if I wanted to use them I'd hook up a spare wallpack and controller and demonstrate.... but why?

Hello all........new here.
The question of sound is interesting. How long before someone gets on the digital bandwagon for slots.
Now days they can fit sound decoders in little N scale model rr engines.
How long before we see a 69 GTO on the slot track that Sounds like a 68 GTO and is siynched to the throttle .........I'm in!!!!! :thumbsup:

I found an instruction sheet with wiring diagram for these grandstands. They can be wired for 2 or 3 wire controllers. If you need a copy I hope I can make my scanner work.

Would luv. a copy.Im about to hook up 4 of them.Thanks

OK, uploaded a scan into the photo gallery - no thumbnail, it is .pdf file, but it is legible. Not sure if I did this the best way, but if it isn't I guess somebody will correct me.

Thanks for the Instructions!!!!!

Hi, new to the chat and have been looking around for how to hook these up, I checked on the photo album but could not find the scan you posted. Can you tell me if it is still posted or is the photo gallery different than the album?

...they can fit sound decoders in little N scale model rr engines. How long before we see a 69 GTO on the slot track that Sounds like a 68 GTO and is synched to the throttle ...

Digital sound for slots. Now there's a neat idea. The problem would be the shift points. You might be able to come up with a sound decoder that would start the low-to-high revs cycle over at, say, 1/3 and 2/3 throttle, each time in a slightly higher pitch range. Only three gears, but if you put in six, you'd just get a machinegun stutter on our short model straights; three would be enough to give the effect. You'd need both the extended upshift cycle and the sharp downshift cycle. You couldn't just reverse the upshift sound coming down the gears.

The other problem is that our cars can zoom to top speed, or brake to a stop much faster than real cars, so there might have to be a delay feature built into the shift cycle. It goes through a minimum duration of all three gearshifts even if the car is already moving at top speed before it's finished with the first-gear sound cycle. Any deceleration resets the cycle to basic non-delayed position and starts the downshift cycle.

I think it would be a waste to try to put speakers in the cars, like the MRR guys do with their locomotives. Just a speaker near the driver's station should be enough. In fact, I don't think anything should go in the car, just the throttle setting should be enough to tell the system what sounds to output.

A slot sound system should have a trimmer to adjust the range to match the resistance ratings of any controller/car combination, so you always get the full range of sounds through the full range of the controller settings.

It ought to have an overall tone-range adjustment, so you could set it for a buzzy small-displacement motor sound or a rumbly big-block range, depending on what car model you were running.

It should work off an independent power source, so as not to steal power from the cars.

As an extra, it might have a constantly running low volume background sound loop with crowd sounds, loudspeaker announcements, pit talk, etc. You should be able to turn off this feature.

It would have a switch to set it for the straight motor and shift sounds as heard by the driver, or modulate the engine sounds with a doppler effect to give the sounds heard by a stationary observer as the car approaches and recedes. If it was really smart, it would be able to read where the car is on the track and rig the maximum doppler effect for a single place and minimize it for the rest of the track. The driver could set maximum doppler for the main grandstand, center of the long straight, or close to the driver's station, or at a particular corner or straightaway where most of the (actual, not model) onlookers would be. It could really be impressive.:woohoo:

Oh, yeah, and you'd need a screech-crash sound for when the throttle is still on, but the current abruptly drops to zero because the car has left the track.

What else???

-- D

. . . The other problem is that our cars can zoom to top speed, or brake to a stop much faster than real cars . . . -- D

Slot cars are probably most equivalent to a modern F1 car, i.e. mind-boggling acceleration matched with eyeballs-hitting-your-face-shield braking power.

God I love F1 cars. :woohoo:

Slot cars are probably most equivalent to a modern F1 car, i.e. mind-boggling acceleration matched with eyeballs-hitting-your-face-shield braking power.

God I love F1 cars.

Chuckle. Don't we all, Doba?

But I'm sure you'll agree they're still pretty poky compared to our little wonders. How long does it take an F1 car to reach top gear? Don't know exactly when they make that last shift, but an F1 car takes about 11.5 seconds to 185mph, so let's call it that.

And how long does it take a Tomy to hit the equivalent - say, 85% of top speed? My guess is well under two seconds, probably under one second (I've never had a long enough straight to know when one topped out). For the sake of our proposed soundmaking-box, that's five shifts in, let's say, a second. Too fast to sound realistic to an ear operating in 1:1 time, I'd guess. Which is why I suggested sounds for only three speeds (two shifts) with a minimum interval. I'd guess that would strike a convincing balance to the listener.

I think you need to build one of these gizmos and let us know.
-- D

Try the trick of cutting a flap in a heat shield to rub on the arm. You'll get an idea what it sounds like around the track. A little F1-ish but only one "gear". ;)

I'm willing to bet by using either Slottrak or PC Lap Counter with the Phidget boards you could set up sensors around the track that would kick out different sounds from the PC, aside from the normal finish line sounds.

An even simpler idea would be using Radio Shack digital voice recorders to record short F1 sounds and set up a small electronic circuit for each that triggered the sound boxes with track sensors.

You could have sounds of short acceleration and decelleration shifting segments at different parts of the track. Obviously you'd need a pretty big track.