[Dr_C2]

   

Here is an ATtiny3224 fitted to a standard Scalextric lane changer PCB. This board has been under test at rug/carpet level hence the specs of dust. It’s functioning precisely as it should.

The ATtiny has a factory calibrated internal oscillator so the silver component in the foreground (known technically as a ceramic resonator) is no longer required. This frees up I/O pins 2 and 3 (and adjacent landing pads) for two additional sensors. As mentioned earlier these extra sensors are useful when implementing collision avoidance. I refer to these additional sensors as ‘pre-decision’ sensors since they are used to read vehicle position at a point in time prior to decisions being taken on whether to permit driver lane change requests or not.

Next the additional sensors need to be wired-in and the collision avoidance algorithms added.

This is a nice little project which has the potential to help avoid unnecessary collisions on Scalextric digital setups - improving flow and reducing damage to cars.

I believe previous versions of third party anti-collision firmware have used a single sensor per lane and retained the original PIC 16F630 microcontroller. Both the extra sensors and the upgrade to the ATtiny should bring some performance benefits and, at the same time, simplify the coding process.

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