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Sport World C8310 CD wanted
#31

Hello Leo

Well the circuit board is a 20 year old design but has a very high population of SMD components, I have another SW Tower that I bought for a song but that has a slightly more persistent fault on lane two, I am suspecting the zener diodes that are associated with the MOSFETS, we will see.

Pacer works on the PC mode as well where it is called 'Virtual driver' , the track and cars need to be in tip top preparation but then the Pacer virtual driver can maintain a monotonous high speed.

Started playing with the weather conditions and pistops, a little to figure out there.

I guess I like defying conventional wisdom so that is why I persist with SW, a bit like driving our Lancias !!

Baz
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#32

I am really having good fun getting to the bottom of the good and bad sides of Sport World.

We have been able to fix slot 2 problems, I actually think slot 2 is a coincidence as there is no difference in the control circuits between slot 1 and 2. The prime suspect is the MOSFETS controlling the outputs but these are cheap and available. There is dual package zener diode that sits with the MOSFETS and that is unobtainable since 2007 but we will figure out an equivalent work around on those shortly. So we have one control box out of commission but fully expect that to be running within the week.

What I am finding very interesting is getting the Pacer working nicely, certainly to get the Pacer running well (Fast) the cars need to have been prepared well with good braids and very clean good grip tyres, the track also needs to be clean, I use a painters tack rag on the track as this picks up the dust but does not remove the 'rubbering in' of the track.
Currently my feeling is that the Pacer can run between 2.5 to 5% of the very best lap that a reasonably good driver can do, but the Pacer will do it lap in and lap out. The Pacer really likes cars like the Porsche 911 GT3 analogues, it is pretty OK on GT40 type cars, the real test will be 1960's Formula Junior cars !!

The Sport World Pacer is anything but a rubber band around the controller, in the Youtube video you can hear both cars spooling up and down, the Pacer syncs going across the start finish line, if it de slots it runs at about half power until the start finish line until it can re sync. There is some kind of learning process taking place the first time a profile is used in a session as it slows down near the start finish line for a few laps and then picks up speed to the that set by the data lap, there also seems to be a slowing down if it is not under pressure by maybe 0.25 second per lap on 3.75 second laps.

I hope this is of some interest.

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#33

Hello Mister Sport World,
Stunning progress with the tech aspects on this ! 
I have been reading the manual...  the features offered are incredible. Defining the virtual track that is used for the "live view" allows snow-caps to be painted onto the hills and three types of camera installation to provide appropriate point-of-view around the circuit.
Have you tried the automatic Yellow Flag feature where the system recognises when a car has de-slotted?
The reason I was reading/skimming the manual was to find out why there are 4 sockets for expansion modules but only 3 connectors for the track connection cables - not found an answer yet.
The "current break" track(s) help the unit to match the position of the physical car to its position on the simulated circuit.

All considered, this is a very sophisticated system and probably over-complicated if someone's first Scalextric set. I can imagine stressed out parents on Christmas Morning!

Leo

Forum Precepts:  Don't hijack or divert topics - create a new one.   Don't feed the Troll.    http://www.scuderiaturini.com
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#34

Leo

Yes I may well become Mr Sport World !!

I have tried the automatic yellow from a de-slot it works very well, the system is very quick to detect a de-slot and reduces the circuit power to the other slot until the crashed car is back in the slot. I think the reason the headlights are always on is that the system is putting a little power onto the slots and that is one of the reasons it can tell when a de slot re slot occurs, it knows the car is back on the track before the throttle is applied.

I have fiddled with the weather feature as well, it announces rain and then just makes the car trigger happy, full power or nothing until you pit and then you resume as normal.

I have yet to try the fuel weight burn off feature.

The system is complicated, it should have been sold with a stripped down software, basic racing and Championships etc and then an upgrade to take it to where the system was actually sold once people had got used to it.

The throttle profiles are quite interesting and the telemetry shows the throttle on/off's against time, this is where the Pacer lap is picked from.

My 2 1/4 year old Granddaughter loves it as there are various settings to reduce power and on the easiest setting the cars will not crash.

Baz
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#35

The history of Sport World is interesting. 
After its release, Scalextric ran a worldwide championship competition with early adopters. It worked very well and was perhaps ahead of its time. This was borne out of the fact that the three extra modules were there for 8 lane racing and digital racing. However, during the development to get the digital functionality working properly within Sport World, time ran out as there was no clear time frame as to when the problems with the digital functions vs. time lag could be resolved - and SportWorld had to be launched as an analogue unit only. SportDigital was released a year or so later as we know it today - that is, without it being part of a grander SportWorld master powerbase with analogue and digital functionality!
Considering it was twenty years ago when development first started it is probably fair to say that it was too advanced for the available telecoms infrastructure. Today with much faster internet connections, it could have worked. Perhaps!
A great product and its legacy lead Scalextric to release Digital to the world. So there's a positive to it all and its still a great little product as a standalone powerbase.

I hope this is of interest.

Happy Racing
Adrian
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#36

(21st-Jun-21, 07:36 PM)AdrianNorman Wrote:  The history of Sport World is interesting. 
After its release, Scalextric ran a worldwide championship competition with early adopters. It worked very well and was perhaps ahead of its time. This was borne out of the fact that the three extra modules were there for 8 lane racing and digital racing. However, during the development to get the digital functionality working properly within Sport World, time ran out as there was no clear time frame as to when the problems with the digital functions vs. time lag could be resolved - and SportWorld had to be launched as an analogue unit only. SportDigital was released a year or so later as we know it today - that is, without it being part of a grander SportWorld master powerbase with analogue and digital functionality!
Considering it was twenty years ago when development first started it is probably fair to say that it was too advanced for the available telecoms infrastructure. Today with much faster internet connections, it could have worked. Perhaps!
A great product and its legacy lead Scalextric to release Digital to the world. So there's a positive to it all and its still a great little product as a standalone powerbase.

I hope this is of interest.

Happy Racing

Adrian

Thanks you very much for the insight into the development struggles of Sport World.

If Sport World worked nearly two decades ago over the Internet then I am very sure it would now.

Anyhow it works great as a standalone product and we will be using it for some great home racing.

Regards

Baz
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#37

Hello Adrian,
Thank you for that background info.  I see that the tech company involved "Scientific Generics" still exists as "Sagentia Ltd" and references Scalextric amongst their case histories. 
Sport World must have been a big investment, but it makes sense as a precursor to Sport Digital.
Nowadays, on-line gaming is taken for granted as part of society, one is left wondering if Scalextric could have been at the forefront of that movement and how it might have progressed.

Leo

Forum Precepts:  Don't hijack or divert topics - create a new one.   Don't feed the Troll.    http://www.scuderiaturini.com
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#38

(21st-Jun-21, 11:14 AM)Scuderia_Turini Wrote:  "The reason I was reading/skimming the manual was to find out why there are 4 sockets for expansion modules but only 3 connectors for the track connection cables - not found an answer yet."

I only noticed this after you mentioned it as my focus has been on the zener diode issue with one of the towers.

Maybe Scalextric had aspirations for further expansion through that forth port, clearly at that time they were thinking Big !!

I wonder if Adrian has any insight on this ?

Baz
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#39

Hi Baz and Scuderia_Turini,
The 'time lag' over trying to synchronize the packets of digital information was the main problem. For example, making your car switch lanes on your local track was easy of course but getting that action to happen on screen and in sync with the remote track was the issue. The time lags and general sync issues also saw the inclusion of the half-straight power-break track piece which was was an additional way of getting a signal to the program to report the location of a car. The powerbase expansion modules were to accommodate analogue racing, digital racing, wireless controllers and any other ideas Sagentia could develop.
There's not much else to say on the subject since that is where it ended - with the time-lag and sync issues. As ST suggests, think what it could have been like if it was developed today!
Happy Racing
Adrian
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#40

OK I have been quite for some while, I had to try and source the chip that sits between the two MOSFETS, it is labelled 3A3 and it is a tiny little 6 legged job.

The MOSFETS (2 off for each lane) that sit with the 3A3's (1 off for each lane)  are easy to purchase, it is the 3A3 that is the problem.

Eventually found some 3A3's from a very dubious source but had little option but to try them, hey presto they worked.

I have a small stock of the 3A3's, although I would say that anyone changing them over needs to be super proficient at replacing SMD devices, my son can swap these things over like most of us swap 13A wall plugs.

So I have two working Sport World towers, one which I bought and worked 100% and it then failed in one slot, and another that was sold to me as 100% working but was duff on one lane straight out of the box.

The first tower just needed MOSFET's changing the second one did not respond to just the MOSFET's and had 3A3's changed and then MOSFET's again as a precaution.

I would say that a high percentage of Sport World failures were centred around these two chips.
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