New Start Finish gantry

The existing start finish gantry was a vintage Scalextric item with start lights fitted underneath.

The problem was its fragility.  It would regularly get knocked by a car and the start-finish banner would fall out, or the start lights would slide down the metal poles.

At the recent Slot Car Festival, I found a more sturdy laser cut gantry from MHS Model Products.  This comes flat packed and needs a knife to cut away the places where it is connected before being pressed out.

I constructed the gantry, sprayed it white, and fixed the chequered flags and START / FINISH signs, once I'd painted them also.  Before glueing the side structures, I cut a couple of slots so that the LED lighting panel could be inserted and removed.

Installed on the track, this should hopefully be more robust and resist the inevitable crashes when racers are going for that fastest lap.

Race Status Board

A further project using the Phidget outputs - a race status board.  I'd already made a vintage version of a race board but found it a bit high where the building was located, so had already detached the board to another location.

This left the time keeper's hut looking a bit insignificant.  I had another tatty-looking event board unused so I decided to adapt it.  I cut it up and cut some black plasticard as a backing plate.

I sprayed all the pieces black and printed out the circuit name and some labels.  I then wired up a set of LED indicators for each lane.

Not pretty but out of sight...

The Ultimate Racer software controls the lights, indicating in the relevant column for lane 1 or lane 2 who is in the lead (Green), who has the fastest lap (Blue) and who is Out of Fuel (flashing Orange when low, constant Orange when completely Out of Fuel).

I'm really pleased with the Phidget board and the extra projects it has enabled.  It's looking a bit busy under the table now, but there are still a few pins left for other ideas...

Start Lights

F1 style start lights is the second project using the output pins on the new Phidget board.

I wanted to keep the vintage Scalextric Start-Finish banner so I cut some plasticard to fix underneath.

I got five pre-wired red LEDs and connected them to some network cable which goes down the post, through the table and is wired into the Phidget board.

The five lights follow the F1 sequence of coming on at one second intervals, with the race starting when they all go out.  Here's a short clip of the starting sequence.

Also featured in this video is the latest bargain - a McLaren F1 GTR from Ninco in bright pink - which was on a three hour sale the other night at Hedley's Hobbies.

The McLaren F1 was conceived by Gordon Murray and the exterior of the car was designed by Peter Stevens (who also designed my old Lotus Elan).  In 1998, it set the record for the fastest road car in the world, topping at 243 mph.  The car features numerous proprietary designs and technologies; it is lighter and has a more streamlined structure than many modern sports cars, despite having one seat more than most similar sports cars, with the driver's seat located in the centre (and slightly forward) of two passengers' seating positions

Staying Alive

Whilst the layout has had emergency vehicles and a helicopter on standby for urgent medical evacuations for a few years, it didn't have anywhere for first aid treatment on site.  At last year's Swindon Swapmeet I bought a First Aid Hut but somehow it never made it home (accidentally left by the car in the car park remains our best guess since Andy and I can't find it with the rest of our slot car stuff).

Anyway, at last weekend's Swindon Swapmeet I found a vintage First Aid Hut in perfect condition, with the original box.  There was just enough space for it next to the helipad.

I've wired it up with lights, along with the timekeeper's hut at the start finish line.  Between them, the two buildings have far fewer bulbs than some of the other installations (like the tunnel or helipad) so I had to wire up a simple voltage divider which halves the operating voltage and ensures the bulbs don't blow.

In the background of the hut photo you can make out a few new trees installed on the layout (about time too since it's called Highwood!).  These are in a few other locations as well but notably around the Big Screen installation.

It's curtains for the Scalextric layout

Literally.

I was fed up with how messy everything looked under the table with boxes of cars and wargaming terrain on one side, and dozens of games on the other.  So a couple of chequered flags have now been transformed into curtains.

On the left you can also see the grab picker I recently bought for retrieving those troublesome cars that deslot in the far corner.  No-one else can reach them unaided and I'm doing my back in trying to reach over every time!

On the right hand side, you can see the lighting board.  There's a 24V supply that goes through these switches to the various lighting circuits on the layout.  The first four items on the left hand list are all constructed and wired.  The other switches are ready for future lighting projects - the compass points are to indicate areas of the track that may have lamppost-type lighting at some point.

And yes, I did do the sewing of the curtains all myself (proof below!) but I was supervised by a responsible adult.