Pull over and put your hands where I can see them

A while back, I blogged about a police car I'd bought to chase the General Lee around the track.

A great car but it niggled me that the red light on top was just for how.  So I re-wired it!  Maplin sell a flashing LED for a quid which operates up to 14V.  My layout runs at 16V so a bit of O Level physics with Ohm's Law suggested if I stuck a 200 ohm resistor in series with the LED, it should drop the voltage enough to avoid it blowing.  It works - kind of.  It flashes away when I test it but on the track itself it's pretty much constantly on.  But I guess that's better than nothing.

In the photo, the car is sat on my latest contraption - a little test bed made from a cut up piece of track with a 9V battery box soldered to the rails.  A nice quick way of testing a car and portable enough that I can stick it in my back pocket next time I go to a Swapmeet to test second-hand cars before buying them.

I also bought another police car cheap on eBay last week - a twenty-five year old Rover SD1.  Someone had already replaced the tyres on it, so I just oiled and greased it, and cleaned up the paint work to get it back in good condition.  It's lost its wing mirrors but still has its bumpers and the transfers are perfect.  It has a working flashing light but the siren doesn't work any more.  I've wondered about trying to fix that but suspect it get a bit annoying after just a few laps!