[BAracer]

I'm still trying to get my head round that magnetically levitating axle. 

Wouldn't it sag at one end when you loaded it up with a wheel?

[MrFlippant]

It would bounce a little, but it's not a truing machine, so it's ok if it sags a little. The point is to find which "side" of the assembly is heavy because it will rotate down, and either remove or add weight to balance it. 


(Deleted old links to avoid accidental clicking.)

[MrFlippant]

[BAracer]

#45

In which Greg sweats, and Dennis and Alan come to the rescue...

It started off normally with Show + Tell. Alan showed, everyone was speechless (which isn't good for a video chat). Last week, Dennis had shown us a magnetic wheel balancing tools that was a wonder of engineering. No disrespect to Alan, but he had been inspired by Dennis and had put together a magnetic wheel balancing tool based on a five minute sweep of his workshop...so the frame that looked like a G-clamp WAS a G-clamp, the magnets on each arm that looked like NSR magnets WERE NSR magnets, and the axle with a pointy bit at one end WAS an axle with a point formed at one end. And it worked just as well as Dennis's bespoke item, and the silence on the chat was the sound of everyone admiring Alan's ingenuity, and realising they all probably had a wheel balancing 'white kit' in their workshops.

Dennis then put in a sales pitch for UV setting glue...how could any of us still use the traditional stuff that you only know when it's cured by the lack of a fingerprint mark when you touch it. As he put it "user controlled curing; why rush, why wait?"

The chat almost flipped down 60's memory lane when alternative braid storage devises started popping up on screen. Who'd have thought...

And then the mood of the chat suddenly changed...Greg admitted he had run out of things to chat about! He even resorted to telling us what he had done yesterday, even though it was a revelation to us stuck in our third month of solitary confinement here in the UK. He had had visitors round to play on his track! 

Then having gathered himself together, a dropped thought from Greg triggered Dennis into full presentation mode...A masterclass in slot car motors. So: -

• Types and designation
  
• Magnet material
  
• Timing and direction of rotation
  
• Internal architecture
  
• The advantages of brushless motors
  
• Maintenance 
  
• Tuning
  and...
• Why it's often best to go can-end drive. 
  

The chat then talked about the factors affecting the 'drivability' of motors, using the current trend for Proxy racing as an example. 

And for the next Chat, Alan offered to present the different features of inline, sidewinder and anglewinder motor configurations. You could almost see the pressure leave Greg's shoulders and start the week long journey onto Alan's.

[MrFlippant]

Tune in to see if Alan has done his homework, or throws something together off the cuff, and will it be as good as Dennis' off the cuff motors 101? ;-)


(Deleted old links to avoid accidental clicking.)

[MrFlippant]

[BAracer]

#46

In which what goes around comes all the way back again...

So we started with a chat about Clublife and how different people around the world run race events. Most seem to charge a small entry fee, most seem to include a break at some point, but that's where the similarities ended. In the English home counties it was break for tea and biscuits, in Canada it was for bagels and doughnuts, in the US it was for general hydration and energy bars, but in Wales it was to wind up your opponents. And you will have to watch the Chat to find out which clubs use any surplus funds at the end of the year to subsidise slot car purchases!

The core of this weeks Chat was Alan's presentation on the features of inline, anglewinder and side winder motor set ups. He described it as being for newbies, but you can't keep a slot car enthusiast quiet when it comes to anything technical and the questions started coming in at a rapid rate. So we learnt about: -

• The real reason why anglewinders were invented
  
• Why NSR AW pods are odd
  
• Why Thunderslot pods aren't
  
• Reverse pods
  
• Clockwise/anticlockwise running
  
• Gear mesh
  
• Gear lash
  
• Gear forces
  
• Gear shaped hand gestures
  

And despite Alan's best endeavours for us not get excited by motors, these being only the 4th most important factor in car performance, we picked up on where Dennis left off last week with a chat on the dark art of motor management, from how the run them in (without the use of electricity), how to spot a good one (no prizes for guessing who owns a nice bit of kit that can do that), how to increase performance (by the use of sperm whale tears), and how NOT to increase their performance (by the use of a vice). And for anyone wanting to go deeper, there is always "slotblog".

And to complete the circle, the Chat was tail-ended by a further discussion on Clublife and how prize money for races can either divide club mates or bring them together, depending on how the money is distributed. Someone even suggested that the skill is to enjoy the racing even if you don't win...


Anyway, watching this Chat will earn you a CPD certificate from, and I quote one of the contributors, the "University of Slot Cars".

[Nonfractal]

Thanks for these short summaries 
Very useful for me when trying to locate the footage of topics discussed previously.
Alan.

[MrFlippant]

(Deleted old links to avoid accidental clicking.)

[MrFlippant]