[ScorpiusWireless]

Hi Guys,
    I was sitting down one afternoon thinking how nice it would be to produce quality aftermarket products for multiple brands on the market. Everything you could think off. A basic car chip, a deluxe car chip, lane changer electronics, lap counter, location sensors, a powerbase dongle, for Scorpius, Carrera, Scalextric and SCX digital systems. Then I’m thinking wow that’s like 15 or 20 products to design, manufacture and stock. So I’m thinking that’s 7 years work and a heap of coin. Lots of minimums and one off charges. 
 
After another Peroni it occurred to me that what if one decoder could do 15-20 products?
It would be a Multi Protocol Decoder as well as a Multi Purpose Decoder. Either way the term MPD  seems to have stuck.
 
So what’s needed hardware wise to run this baby?
Power: AC/DC/Pulsed DC. A bridge rectifier is fitted to power Scalextric, Scorpius and Carrera  digital respectively.
After that we need sensors and LEDs for enabling car chip and lane changer for 3 brands. So two LED driver circuits and two photo transistor circuits are added. 
 
Next are lights. We need a tail/brake circuit with 2 red LEDS attached. Also another LED driver circuit with LEDs for headlights. These can be optional.
Next we need some goodies. How about a hall sensor that will detect motor revolutions. Bingo worlds first digital wireless slot car motor tacho. Optional. 
 
Next more goodies. How about an accelerometer and recording program that maps your G forces 100 times a second. Once you know the cars maximum G force before a despot you could use it at every opportunity with 100 updates per second. All this hopefully will give the ultimate ghost car performance , especially for non magnet cars.


Rick

[JasonB]

Can't fault your ambition mate.  

I'm guessing this won't happen overnight, but please keep us updated as you progress.

[ScorpiusWireless]

Hi Guys,
   The ten MOD prototypes arrived.
The real time operating system is being tested for the first time. During production we wrote a hell of a lot of firmware ready to load in once the prototypes arrived. 
Most programs run on a continuous loop which has far more disadvantages than advantages. A real time operating system runs multiple programs parallel to each other simultaneously. This is generally faster, less prone to failures, generally easier and quicker to write firmware and easier to debug during the writing phase.
With all the new functions coming we see that a number of functions will be required to run at the same time. Example it possible at any one moment the car is operating the motor while sending telemetry back to the PC, whilst running on an automatic best line system. A hall sensor is measuring engine pulses (tacho) operates whilst an accelerometer is measuring g forces in 3 axis and adding it into the telemetry stream. Meanwhile simulations are being processed and implemented to affect motor and braking functionality. It’s also controlling flashing lights in the roof as thus far is actually the safety car. Brake flame simulation is randomised whilst car is braking. Headlights and brake lights are being used too. This would be just too hard and risky to implement using the loop method. 
So this RTOS will be well worth the entire firmware re-write.

Things we are testing are:

Boot loader
DFU. (Device Firmware Upgrade) 
Scorpius car decoder protocols
Scorpius Lane Brain protocols
Accelerometer 
Carrera car decoder
Lights 

The bug testing period should be around a month.
Once that’s tested we can move onto:
Carrera Lane Changer
Scalextric Digital car decoder.
Scalextric Digital lane changer.
SCX LED protocol.
Carrera Wireless Relay (Allows Scorpius Controller to operate Carrera CU and Scorpius MPD Car Decoder simultaneously) A new dual comms system.