4*8 Slot car Table!

[RaincloudDev]

We're building a cool thing! So far, I've converted an old 6v toy-grade slot car track to a fairly sweet custom rig providing each lane with 9v@1A. There are polarity switches in the table the drivers can easily access. Its friggin sick.



this is the table build primarily, but you can't leave out the crane and the robot arm! There will be an active crane on the table, and potentially a robot arm that loads and unloads the crane.

Thats pretty cool.

[RaincloudDev]

Power and Polarity Upgrade


The slot car table has been a blast!! The most recent addition to the table include individual lane power and switchable polarity. The slot car track set we started this build with is of unknown origin, we found it under a bunch of stuff at a thrift store. That being said, it is a basic 6v slot car electrical circuit. Once we got it on the table, we were able to really get familiar with how it all worked. Of course that opened up the door for custom modifications. Once the power circuit was accessible, I began tinkering. I started by finding a few known good power supplies. I chose 9v 1a, mostly because they were the only matching supplies I had, but also because I wasn't sure how well the motors and controllers would handle the higher voltage.


Isolating slot car lanes is fairly straight forward, just remember you're working with electricity, so be safe! In toy grade slot car tracks, the lanes are powered directly from the source, while the trigger is on the ground side. This is usually swapped in hobby and custom slot car layouts, which can also include braking function and various control knobs.


The wiring shown in the video goes like this:
9v+ - to lane
9v- - to trigger
from trigger - to lane polarity switch
from polarity switch to lane


I used XT60 connectors in my layout on the POWER IN and TRIGGER junctions, but I will be upgrading to 1/4" 'guitar' plugs later. (**NOTE** The controller I constructed after filming this video seems to have died in this experiment. I'm not sure if It's because I mixed the wires on the plug or if the 9v supply fried it. Will update **NOTE**)


The lane wires are attached to steel posts mounted under the table. I used simple crimp connectors to make the connections on the posts. The polarity posts come up through the top of the table where the drivers can swap two alligator clips to control the polarity of the track.


Each lane is powered this way, providing each lane with 9v@1amp. No more blasting off into the ionosphere when your opponent crashes!

[RaincloudDev]

Slot Car Table Additions

The table plan was an initial success. The power system is working out nicely, it just needs to be cleaned up and properly installed. I still haven't come across any spare 1/4" plugs, so the xt60 thing will have to work for now. I may have some barrel connectors in the parts bin now, but I'm not sure they would work well with the wire gauge I'm using.

This time, work on the table includes a semi-permanent solution to the wiring. The Lanes work and should be isolated from the other bits of the project anyway. They will continue to use individual power supplies.

I'm working up to building the crane electronics, and will need a way to power the rest of the electronics on the table, so a bus system is the next thing to nail down. As I'm writing this, I imagine it would be ideal to make use of  power and ground busses, as well as an I/O panel for signal and sensors. Seeing as how this certainly won't be as simple as a few power wires, hopefully semi-thorough planning will help make the wiring such a mess.
(to be continued...)

[RaincloudDev]

More Things

Voltage to the table should come from a big amp charger. shouldn't be too hard to find but I'll need to make sure I have a way to break out different voltages depending on the parts I use.

As of this moment, the parts I can think of that will need power from the table are:
-Crane(6v)
-Crane Cam(5-12v)
-Lights(5v?)
-Pi Pico(5v)
-Sensors and mess(likely all 5v)
-Tablet Used as Monitor(charge)

The tablet should be no problem to plug in to the power strip that will be mounted into the table if it needs to be charged. It will primarily be used to display and interact with the table's server. It would be nice for this to have a home on the table where it makes sense for UI to be, but also be easily removable for relocation during play.

There's no telling how many LED's I'll use, so there's not much sense in trying to guess at the power requirements. I guess this means they get their own universe! I'll power the remote control LED strip with its original adapter for now. They should be controllable via webserver in the end, which will be a lot easier to wrap my mind around once the lights are on the table.

The crane will get the big charger I mentioned before, and the Pico will likely have its own independent power for now too. I guess I'll have to prototype one more time before I figure out the power bus! At any rate, installing the lane power and controls will make working out all of these other things that much easier.

v_also this_v

Wireless Slot Cars

Attach an ESC to the lane and control it with a hobby-grade controller.
--this could be a really neat way to wirelessly control different areas of the track using multiple Rx's.
--could also be used to fire off automations or any other part of the track connected to the lanes Rx.

[RaincloudDev]

Ok, so. I just connected a 7.5v wall-wart to the Tower crane. Looks like its gonna work a LOT better than the original 6v battery. The motors are less noisy and motion is smooth. We have a little Gengar marble that rides in the elevator. It fits so well!

High Power Video!