[raru67]

The newly created Carrera track on Tenerife:

The base plate is made of 5mm thin wood and hinges on the wall. It measures 300cm x 166cm. The construction is reinforced by 4 cm thick square timbers.

Rail material from the Carrera 124 and Carrera Exclusiv systems is used. The marginal strips of Carrera, which are sometimes painted yellow, are painted over in black because they do not occur in nature. The white median was left because it is not a real racetrack, but a real street image.

When folded, the track has a distance of 9 cm to the wall. The buildings are therefore a maximum of 8.5 to 9 cm high. Higher elements are provided with "paper hinges" so that they automatically fall over when the track is closed and straighten up again when opened. These include, for example, the Orca in Loro-Parque and one or the other tower on the site. The only exceptions are the lap counter and the press tower, which have to be removed manually before closing.

All components (except the rail material, some figures, the palm trees and the bushes) are made of paper (80gr / m2), cardboard (180gr./m2) or 5mm foam sheets. For some elements, toothpicks and thin wooden sticks from the craft supplies are also used. Lightweight construction is the central requirement so that the weight can be borne by the thin wood and it does not break. The car models Ford Mustang, Mercedes 190 SL, BMW 2002, Porsche Carrera and the Toyota Hilux are also cardboard models, as are the airship, the helicopter, the orca and the dolphin in the park. Many elements are in-house designs, but a big thank you goes to carrera4fun (the greatest site ever in this area), slot-hobby, pedemann-online, Canon and Epson for the many, many templates and ideas.

A stabilized laboratory power supply unit with separate feed for the two tracks and 2 additional feeds each is used for power supply.

The original idea was to thematically design a track with the framework of the racetracks of the 1960s, mainly following the example of the Nürburgring. After some construction, however, it quickly became clear that the landscaping should also include elements from our new home. Tenerife certainly offers more than enough sights and motifs. The difficulty is to represent a motif on the available space in such a way that it fits in and yet looks somewhat realistic. On the whole, this worked out quite well, if several attempts were necessary with various elements. But, from experience you become wise and learn from each model.

Clearly, there is always something to do. After completing the rough design and the distribution and positioning of the respective mottos, further fine-tuning work was carried out, which will probably take some time. Due to the modular construction of each motif on its own 5 millimeter thick foam sheet, it can easily be removed and reworked without affecting the railway itself. In the beginning, for example, the figures were missing everywhere, the tools in the workshop, etc.
The computer time measurement is done by a standard Carrera lap counter which I am very satisfied with. It shows lap times, fastest time, number for a certain period of time. A very cheap and easy solution.