shodan

Well I seem to have achieved success, thanks for your help Phil. Added caps across the lanes (104's from scx cars, easiest to harvest ) Extended ground wires back to arduino These fixes resolved most issues however I was still getting occasional wrong lane laps- the final piece of the puzzle was to cover a fluorescent light mounted on a wall near the track.

I hadn't even considered the PC.. I guess it could be an issue because it's the only ground source for the arduino, via it's usb connection. The controllers in use are 2x professor motor and 1x SCP-1 which I don't think have full power relays

Thank you Phil, nice to hear from you. Hopefully I've got some scaley motor caps lying around, I'll apply them first - I assume they should bridge the rails for each lane after the controller output? See how it goes, then separate the grounds if that doesn't help

Hi All, As per title I need some help- I'm getting false laps counted during use. Most of the time the system seems to work well, with the occasional short lap getting triggered. And very occasionally, laps being triggered on a different lane. Frustrating. I've got 5mm ZD1945 emitters in the timing gantry, and ZD1950 IR transistors in holes in the track next to the braid. The transistors are connected to a genuine Arduino Uno. I've used decent quality silicone wires back to the arduino in my track control box in a run of perhaps ~1100mm long. The grounds for the transistors are joined at ~300mm in that length (so 6 wires for 300mm, then 4 wires for the remainder). Control box: I was getting a lot of false laps triggered and partially resolved that by dropping the sensors lower into their holes in the track, but I'd appreciate input on how to make the system flawless if possible.. Does powering the arduino separately help? Are there improvements I could make to the circuitry? Could I put the sensors in the gantry to remove as much ambient light triggering as possible?

Cheers Dick. I enjoy the process of building elements up, just have to chip away on a section at a time Yeah that was my general thinking too re adapting to the light levels. Had a bit of a session last night, first in a while. We found that it was fine for racing but it was definitely easier to track cars with light kits (obviously) compared to unlit ones. So while it's currently doable I think I'm going to add a few more

Starting to fill out nicely. Have you moved some of the raised ripples away from the track edges? What's your plans for lighting, what kind of vibe are you going for?

Thanks gents. I'm mostly satisfied with the lighting so far although my concern is the bank does not get enough light, but perhaps the reduced visibility will encourage drivers to ease off a little. Given the camber angle it's not common to deslot there under normal driving conditions, except for the fastest cars with which you do need to back off a bit. An option is to mount some LEDs hidden behind the monitor, pointing down.

Next phase: I was tossing up between signage and lighting but as I can't get the printing done for the signage, lighting won. The design I scribbled way back in 2011 has remained in my head, continuing the modern and industrial theme. It was time to finalise it for production based on the prototype- I decided to add some height and reduce the head angle from 45 to 40. Months ago I'd ordered some plastic H beam stock, enough to do 15 light poles. Of these 8 would be double headed. I wanted nice bright LEDs, enough light to race the cars without ambient support but not completely flooding the track. Ended up choosing a 5mm high-CRI model from Yuji rated at 8 lumen/15k mcd with a 45° view angle. They draw up to 30ma. The lights are on a separate 12vdc psu. Each light is removable and modular so the wiring would be done in parallel with a resistor for each LED. Decided to use JST connectors- cheap and only plug in one way. Perfect. First started milling up the plastic with a rotary tool mounted to a holder with compound table which made easy work getting clean consistent angles. For the lenses I used some 9mm perspex I had laying around. I ripped a strip of this on my table saw and crosscut some small sections. The light heads were assembled and welded together, then I drilled out the hole to accept the LED. I decided to punch all the way through to eliminate any dispersion underneath and simplify the drilling operations... Then the heads welded to the poles Welding the clean cuts together gave an excellent bond, seamless on most of them after a brief file Finally the bases with flange to mount onto the table. I didn't have access to a 3d printer but that would be the way to go Assembled one to test the height, just to make sure.. It's a little taller than the plywood test rig Happy with that so onto the base gussets Next- prepping material for wire cutting and stripping, soldering... LEDs mounted through the back of the head so the flange holds them in place Positioned resistors to be hidden by the base One down, 14 to go... Done! In order to finish the installation I had to build the hairpin island I'd been planning for a while. I wasn't happy with it all flat, just looked wrong. Cut the island shape out of mdf, with a ply base Decided to use blue xps for the walls. First time using it, I've had some kicking around for a while. It might be possible to use 3mm mdf but it seemed like it would be a lot of effort, based on my previous experience Initial pass with a hot wire cutter. This left a lot of ripples so I think it's underpowered for this stuff. But the stuff can be shaped with common tools so no big deal. Creates a huge mess though, be warned! The reference I used was a tutorial that recommended poly filla for the surface protection but I only had builders bog. I don't recommend it, couldn't get a nice finish. Not a problem in this application however as I liked the resulting rough look. Primed and spray painted in the same colour as the rest. For some extra detail I scribed in some lines on the section of base plate to resemble gutter areas and carved a drain near the end. Finally got everything wired up. Sorry for the potato pic but I've misplaced my DSLR battery charger.... I'll find it and redeem myself More lighting to come, see you soon...

Yeah good job the track surface looks great. The dream!

Looking good, you have been busy! How long has this been cooking? What surface paint did you go for, looks a bit speckled?

Dick! good to see you're still kicking my man. Come race some cars when lockdown is over bud. Yeah had a long break but I'm back baby.. New track hey- what progress have you made? Please don't bring that filth into my thread Mark Cheers Paul. Long time mate hope you're well? Yes- very happy with the progress now

Following on from my last post- here's a pic to illustrate the squeeze better: So, September update: The work continues... after resting on my laurels for a while and enjoying some good racing with a few folk, it was time to get on with it. First task was to add some texture and weathering over the base coat to the concrete surfaces... of which there are a lot. Mixed up many shades of gray to add mottling to the concrete- not sure if I got to fifty (thanks to @Farrout for contributing to this image , check out his track if you haven't already ) First by mottling the base with different grays.. Long process! Then dry brushing followed by a dark wash to blend the shades together Then panel lining and grime streaks I used as much reference as possible for these. Wasn't sure how it would pan out, but after many hours.. starting to pay off! You could just go on and on. I still need to do the infill ground areas, but all vertical surfaces apart from the support pillars are complete. After the first texturing and weathering pass was completed, it was time to move on to marking apexes and walls. No pictures of the prep work but it was epic. It took me 5 days(!) to mask up by hand, then 1.5 hours to cover the track surface, then 20 minutes of actual painting using quality Montana spray paint. But the results speak for themselves: Custom chevron pattern for the wall edges: I was a little lax with my masking and got some overspray of the yellow on a couple of sections, which you can see to the right of this pic. Added some detail to the gantry to reinforce and complete the structure. Base-coated it in Tamiya gun metal gray for a nice metallic look. And finally- a lighting test.

Thanks miveson. End to end the track is ~5700 (the frame is slightly longer) and it's 1800 wide. Just fits in my double garage. Lane spacing varies from 85-105 around the track, except for the centre squeeze section shown below which extends for ~2300. The smallest radii are the hairpins of course, orange lane gets down to approximately 260. The only constant radii are the banked curve and the 180 degree sweeper at the other end, everything else is compound.

As is tradition works have slowed due to racing activities. Track is building grip steadily. Decent lap is ~6s; fast is under 5.6 Record holder as of 2 June- 5.428 (Blue) - NSR C7R on MJKs. There's been a lot of my time spent dialing in Race Coordinator to look better, firstly learning XAML on the fly to improve the Race Day display. Then I discovered RC Live which is great- spent some time modifying its html, css and javascript to suit my needs. Having race control call buttons in software is neat too. While the coconut water box supported the pc just fine it wasn't ideally positioned, blocking sight lines in the middle hairpin. Resolved that with a stand to raise it up higher and moved into the sweeper end. Attached an old monitor to the shelf over the bank for results display. Middle lane colour updated with blue replacing the old purple as it was too hard to see. New lane marker dots added Orange is the hardest to drive quickly with the slowest radius through both hairpins, Green the fastest. Blue easiest for noobs with more space to slide in both directions. Architect in to do planning for the garage/workshop building Floorplan drafted Also managed to obtain one of these, much nicer model than the NSR. Had to buy a Carrera digital version. Now just waiting for the chassis to be delivered.

Hey Chris, thanks for dropping in mate. I read somewhere they've moved onto making drones.. a pity to see one of the stalwarts of the scene move on but such is life. Their exit seems to have given Policar track a big boost as they replace the club tracks in Europe etc. Hey Shane! Very long time mate, I hope you're well bud. Can I ask what forced you to give away Grefhurst v2- was it the space issue? I'm in Pascoe Vale these days, why don't you pack some cars and come down some time? Maybe we should have a small V32 reunion I'll be keeping the track for a little while before I move it on, still some more work to be done on it and racing to be had. Having said that I'm already starting to plan the next track haha- it will be routed Scorpius digital.