Flashing micro LED’s.

[Regional Ron]

Hi,

I recently purchased a second hand Scaalextric F1 Merc safety car online. When it arrived it became apparent that it wasn't a standard car.  

On looking inside it was full of all sorts of black magic! I made contact with the supplier who informed me it needed to be on a specific set up (he did offer to refund me)

However I liked the car and decided to take the novice approach of stripping it out and making it a basic car with roof lights.(how heard could it be!)

So I removed all the extra black magic parts including motor, and put it together again. Unfortunately l blew the roof lights whilst trying to establish what the 5 or 6 wires did.

I installed a set of micro flashing Leds with resistor soldered on for good measure Into the roof. I tested the car and lights on a sport power base with track, and all worked well.

I put the car on my Arc Air circuit and it ran ok but no roof lights? It still runs ok on the sport test track section, what have I done wrong please?

I swapped the wires over on the motor and tried again but still no roof lights on the Air?

I look forward to your response/ assistance.

Ron

[Andy P.]

Hmmm.. I thiknk I have seen this post before. :-)

No worries though.

You bought "Challenger" car. It is an autonomous "ghost" car for analog circuits.

Why the flashing doesn't work is very odd. In theory the power should be the same.

The only thing I can think of is that the place where they are wired is causing an issue i.e. between the motor and braids directly at the braids, directly on the motor etc.

It might be worth checking if you wire them up directly to the track (don't go full power though...)

[Regional Ron]

Hi Andy,Yes you may well have done :) I will try your suggestion later.  The Air isn't AC is it? My supplier is saying the flashing LED’s will not work on AC. Ron

[gorp]

Arc air is DC on the track.

 

That challenger you changed is rare and with its tower, could be set up to beat you consistently since it actually memorizes the track.

Once changed one over to digital, a big mistake because in learning the track it needed a push over the lane changers which then affected the memory.

Probably should have remove changers when setting up and then put them back in.

Of course a simple rubber band on controller could beat me here too.

 

[Regional Ron]

Morning,

Every day is a school day at the moment, lol. I've been informed that the Air runs on pulse width modulation and I will need a diode and capacitor in the circuit. These items will produce a steady DC current to operate the flashing LED’s.

At least I know I wasn't going mad now.

So off to the supplier again to source some more bits. Might be an idea to buy a new soldering iron as well! The brick I'm currently using isn't great for this kind of work.

Thanks for your feedback.

Ron

[Andy P.]

Would love to know if it works!!

[gorp]

Reread your original posting couple times.

Learned something today about arc air and it probably also applys to arc one and pro.

[Andy P.]

I doubt it applies to ARC ONE as it is hard wired to the track. The "Brake Mod" shows that you can easily disconnect the power.

The good thing about the capacitor fix is it should work in any form.

[gorp]

Am not an electrician so really confused (as usual).

Since arc pro and the advanced have the same power pack, which must be DC because I feed all my digital bases with the 13.8, 10 amp from that long gone ratshack.

Arc one has to be DC pack too so what is air powerpack ?

 

If remembering right, the lights were wired to challenger computer but cannot remember if flashed after adding chip, but was not an issue here.

You know if analog flashing lights is a deal breaker, would convert to older analog base.

 

 

 

[Andy P.]

It has to do with how the controller tells the power base how much power to allow to the rails. With ARC ONE it is a physical connection. With AIR and PRO it is pulse width modulation.

[gorp]

Thanks for info, Andy

C was talking about wave alot while back on slotforum and thought it was about track power since pb4 was listed as best tightest one and pro had widest and something thought he was working on.

Alan Smith , former head of scaly usa, was always telling me it was AC but my ohm meter on track kept showing it as regulated DC, so we agreed it was magic.