Micro Scalextric ARC

[Seaside Malc]

Hi...I'm sure this may have been food for thought for a lot of folk, but, has anybody manged to come up with a way of using ARC with Micro Scalextric?...I was wondering if it's possible to retrofit the ARC unit to the track in some way....then there's the cars??.....I do wish Scalextric would offer this to Micro Scalextric enthusiasts.......

[woodcote]

In theory, it would be possible to retro-fit ARC One into any slot car system - just use the lap sensing part of ARC One and use the regular powerbase for powering the track. The track power cables of the ARC One powerbase should not be connected to the track rails.

 

It is more difficult with Micro Scalextric and any other 1/64 scale system. The ARC sensors are an infrared beam broken by a black guide blade. The tiny 1/64 scale guide pin/flag is just not big enough to trigger the sensor. An alternative is to use a sensor that picks up the localised magnetic field of the cars' traction magnets - Hall effect sensors would be most reliable, but reed switches could work. This would need some modification to the circuitry - the Hall effect sensors require power and the output signal would probably need tweaking... This has been talked about by enthusiasts in theory, but no-one (as far as I know) has produced a working prototype.

 

ARC Air with with wireless controllers would be great, but then there is the issue of the power output - the standard is 15-ish volts and the voltage required for the old Micro Scalextric is 18 volts or 9 volts for the new 2019 system. Not impossible, but even more complex and means fiddling with the power circuits.

 

Will Scalextric produce an ARC product for the new 9 volt Micro Scalextric system? I don't think so. Will they produce some electronic accessories and apps? I am pretty confident they will do - over the next few years. If I was to make a guess, it would be very easy to produce a Spark Plug for Micro Scalextric. I already use a stand alone lap-counting app with Micro, see here: https://www.scalextric.com/uk-en/new-micro-system-sets