# Revolutionary New Power Rail



## Sir Slotsalot (Jan 23, 2010)

*Renamed: Alternative Power Rail*

Dear Home Track Builders and Home Racers,

If you want a better alternative than “toy-grade” power rail material, please look at Nickel / Iron Alloy wire rail from Slot Car Express. It’s a tarnish and corrosion free alloy rail that provides smooth, consistant performance every lap, and excellent magnetic properties. Countless hours of track test results show virtually no wear to pick-up shoes and cars handle more realistically in the turns. You must try it to believe it!! Free material samples are available. Please contact us.

http://www.slotcarexpress.com/TRACK-BUILDING.html

[email protected]


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## Hornet (Dec 1, 2005)

Whats the wear like with Neo cars,and hows it compare to say Tyco's old rail,for magnetic properties


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## Sir Slotsalot (Jan 23, 2010)

Hornet,

Thanks for responding. We started out as long time users of Tomy track. When we tested the round wire, the Tomy track was our "benchmark". Sorry, I can’t speak for old Tyco track as we had none laying around.

After countless hours of running Tomy SRT's with hardbodies, we found the cars to maintain speed consistently at fixed voltage and p/u shoes had virtually no wear. Magnetic properties are very close to Tomy track perhaps slightly better. The other finding is how the cars "drift" more naturally through the turns because of the round rail top. With flat rail, cars flip on the turns as the rear tires snag the rail's abrupt edge.

I've received a lot of negative responses from the T-Jet people but I expected that. After all, they are a different breed and want to preserve the hobby for what it was. That's cool too. There are no wrong opinions or practices in this hobby.

I should probably emphasize to everyone that our business is not aimed at professional circuit racers or large clubs who must conform to strict rules. 

This is about the home track builder who wants to have fun, improve performance and quality over plastic track, entertain family & friends, and above all, no rules. If you are okay with that then please stay on board with us. We want to make HO cars run like real slot cars, not toys.

Sincerely,
Kihm
Slot Car Express


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## Sir Slotsalot (Jan 23, 2010)

Hornet,

Thanks for responding. We started out as long time users of Tomy track. When we tested the round wire, the Tomy track was our "benchmark". Sorry, I can’t speak for old Tyco track as we had none laying around.

After countless hours of running Tomy SRT's, we found the cars to maintain speed consistently at fixed voltage and p/u shoes had virtually no wear. Magnetic properties are very close to Tomy track perhaps slightly better. The other finding is how the cars "drift" more naturally through the turns because of the round rail top. I've received a lot of negative responses from the T-Jet people but I expected that. After all, they are a different breed and want to preserve the hobby for what it was. That's cool too. There are no wrong opinions or beliefs in this hobby.

I should probably emphasize to everyone that our business is not aimed at professional circuit racers or large clubs who must conform to strict rules. 

This is about the home track builder who wants to have fun, improve performance and quality over plastic track, entertain family & friends, and above all, no rules.


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## Hornet (Dec 1, 2005)

I'm in the process of building a new routed track,so you definitely got me looking at your product:wave:
I'm sitting on a roll of 0.020" X 0.103 rail,but i ain't married to it,and your product sounds pretty intriguing.
What's shipping like up to western Canuckville,Alberta in particular on a roll of your stuff
Rick


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## tjetsgrig (Nov 1, 2009)

How's the compatability with the WizTrak? I have a dragstrip, and was thinking of going to continuous rail ( instead of the 8' sections ). We run some extremely fast classes that need the magnetic downforce for launch. Some more info on this would be appreciated.

Jim Sgrig


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## SwamperGene (Dec 1, 2003)

Jim check your PM's


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## Sir Slotsalot (Jan 23, 2010)

Jim,

Please check the PM regarding more info. Thanks.


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## Tsooko (Oct 15, 2009)

Hornet said:


> I'm in the process of building a new routed track,so you definitely got me looking at your product:wave:
> I'm sitting on a roll of 0.020" X 0.103 rail,but i ain't married to it,and your product sounds pretty intriguing.
> What's shipping like up to western Canuckville,Alberta in particular on a roll of your stuff
> Rick


Rick

If you guys come up next week I'll show you the wire and you can test it out with your cars.
Could be worth the trip even if you can't see the cnc.

Cheers Ted


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## Hornet (Dec 1, 2005)

That damn Todd has us locked into a certain day,just kidding Todd:thumbsup:
I can arrange to come any day,but teachers for some reason can't,lol.Sum-bitch Ted,you run the same hours as me,sleepings something you can do when your dead,lol
Rick


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## Tsooko (Oct 15, 2009)

Hornet said:


> That damn Todd has us locked into a certain day,just kidding Todd:thumbsup:
> I can arrange to come any day,but teachers for some reason can't,lol.Sum-bitch Ted,you run the same hours as me,sleepings something you can do when your dead,lol
> Rick



Hey Rick 
I sleep all day and stay up all nite.:lol:
Best way I know to avoid the bill collectors
You are welcome anytime.

Gene.
Sorry I can't give you that info: Well I could but then I'd have to kill you :roll: :devil:
Seriously, Khim would know and I think he told me but I forgot if he has told me the specific formula of the wire. What I do know is how it acts. To be quite honest, the results are more important to me then the theory behind the electronics.
The test tracks are very short ( 2' x4' )but the results are great so far. I'm going to cut out a longer version of Todd's Suzuka design ( 14' to 16' long ) giving lap lengths of fourty feet or so and try it there but not for a couple of weeks.
My testing so far has consisted of this. I have made an oval with one lane using the round wire ( inside lane) and the other lane with the stitching wire. The cars were mega-gs 1.7 with the neo magnets. I pinned the controller throttles and set the voltage ( about 10 ) so the cars would go as fast as possible without derailing and walked away. The first run was 25 minutes long before looking at the cars. The ni/fi wire car showed no significant shoe wear or darkening of the shoes from arcing on the wire . The motor was not too hot to the touch. Not so for the stitching wire car. Shoe wear was evident although slight, and the wire showed faint traces of carbon from arcing between the shoes along with darkening on the shoes. About the same motor heat. Heat kills motors as you know.
Many more laps have put on with great results.
I am sure Slot car Express would send you some wire to test on a routed track if you asked. Perhaps not fifty feet, but if you have a little patience I'll report on the results when I get the new track up and running
Because of my results with rebar wire on my first track which I was not happy with, I was very skeptical, in fact feeling negative about any form of round wire, the results are very good and I am extremely impressed with the performance of the ni/fi wire so for. As with anything, time will. I would like to try some really high mag cars on it to test the wire and the ability of the glue to hold the wire down. I used ca.
Cheers Ted


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## Sir Slotsalot (Jan 23, 2010)

Dear Gene,

The chemistry for this wire is proprietary, no I'm just kidding. It's two basic metals:

36% Hi-purity Nickel, balance- Iron and "trace" elements. Applications for this are primarily used in the electronics industry for stamped metal sub-components. I made a living in that industry for about 10 years before changing career paths. Having that career experience combined with slotcar savy, and the desire to try new things for fun, I said hmmmm, why not give this wire a new application? I did not consider any negative aspects for wanting to try somethhing new. Again, it was based on knowing the wire's properties and how it could relate to slotcars.

Kihm


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## SwamperGene (Dec 1, 2003)

Sir Slotsalot said:


> Dear Gene,
> 
> The chemistry for this wire is proprietary, no I'm just kidding. It's two basic metals:
> 
> ...


Thanks Kihm.

My understanding is that nickel alloys are basically "branded" by the percentage of nickel, so this would seem to be Invar or a derivative of it?


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## Sir Slotsalot (Jan 23, 2010)

Yes, you are correct. In electronics sub-components applications, Invar, Kovar, and Alloy 42(42% Ni) are chosen for their material stabiltity across broad tempurature ranges. I chose it for different reasons.

Kihm


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## Rolls (Jan 1, 2010)

Kihm - It's fun to see your sense of humor showing. I continue to read with interest to better understand the benefits and tradeoffs of your new rail. I think any continuous rail offers huge benefits over joints in smoothness, p/u life, and effective power dist'n around the track. Then cross-section and material choice become the interesting choices. I've noticed, like many others, that Hilltop's beautiful speedway appears to have rounded rails which are always pristine and that intrigued me.

Swamper - It's awesome that you're engaged in this discussion. Having you and some of the others bringing all your experience to bear on this new rail is very helpful to me in thinking it through. Thank you.

Tsooko - I really like your style. Your hands-on experimentation is GREAT. Please continue to post as you experiment. I think that it is going to so valuable to get this rail in the hands of home track builders and also to get a couple of experienced car builders to run on it, too. That'll give us more useful data on how different car types react to it. (Edit: Same thanks goes to Hornet, now that I've seen the latest posts in the other thread. And really, to anyone else who constructively adds to the discussion.)

I like it when anyone takes time and effort to bring something to our great little hobby, which sadly is often a little neglected for various reasons. I really think it was a very smart idea to design this offering to approximate the mag characteristics of Tomy track. Some home builders won't care as they'll weigh the benefits more heavily than considerations of compatibility. Others will care to different degrees. 

Everyone cares about maintainability and durability. The mag guys will be understandably sensitive to the mag characteristics of the track for their own use and also for any other tracks or racers in their slot social group. The pancake proponents or the slide-wide set is going to care more about things like what it's really like as their favorite tires slide across the rounder rail. Each group has their vocal proponents, but I'm pretty sure a huge number actively enjoy in-lines and pancake chassis. All groups will care about how their cars will perform with no set-up changes to their current chassis set-up and then what improvements can be had for what amount of set-up changing. 

As experience grows folks making choices will have a growing pool of data and experience to work from, so they can make the right choice for their tracks. 

Very helpful and enlightening! :thumbsup::thumbsup:

- Rolls


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## Sir Slotsalot (Jan 23, 2010)

Thanks Rolls,

A well said and and a comprehensive view of the whole situation. Keep posting. I like your style.

Kihm


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## Sir Slotsalot (Jan 23, 2010)

deleted


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## tossedman (Mar 19, 2006)

Hornet said:


> That damn Todd has us locked into a certain day,just kidding Todd:thumbsup:
> I can arrange to come any day,but teachers for some reason can't,lol.Sum-bitch Ted,you run the same hours as me,sleepings something you can do when your dead,lol
> Rick


Rick - don't forget that educating the masses is for the greater social good. Can't just be willy nilly taking days off here and there, why, it would cause confusion and delay. My teenaged pupils, whose bodies are going through the throws of puberty, who sometimes don't know if they're coming or going need structure, guidance and.... 

Aw forget it. See you Thursday.

Now you and Ted should get some sleep.

Todd


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## Grandcheapskate (Jan 5, 2006)

As I work on, and dream about, routing a track, my main focus is to use it with stock inline magnet cars - nothing exotic. The shoe wear that I get on plastic track with T-Jets and Magna-Tractions is fairly minimal. It is the magnet cars, and the downforce they apply, that can really wear out pickup shoes on rail in my opinion.

Anyone who has ever used an Aurora Super Magnatraction chassis (these are inline chassis) knows the pickup shoes wear noticeably within the first 5-10 minutes. No rail configuration is going to help them.

I cannot claim to have insight on the flat vs. round wire debate. However, common sense would imply that a thin rail, whether flat or rounded, is going to wear a thin groove in the pickup shoes especially when cars are being pulled down to the track. This is my reasoning in attempting to use braid - it's wide and flat and pickup shoes should last nearly forever.

The problem is this: as the surface area (shoes to "rail") increases, the downward pressure decreases. So, when using a wide "rail", you need to have more downward pressure than when using a thin "rail" to get the same result - all things (rail height, etc.) being equal. I know I will have to set up my cars differently to run on braid, but that's a price I'm willing to pay (I think).

If round wire is an improvement over flat wire, it should be embraced as an alternative for those who choose to use it. For those who want to maintain the pseudo "standard" that has established over the past 50 years, that will still always be available.

Thanks...Joe


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## Sir Slotsalot (Jan 23, 2010)

Joe:

To prove a point, I'm tempted to loan my test track and Neo cars to any Neo guys who want to give it a try. At this point, I could care less about making another sale. The wire already sells just fine.

Kihm


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## Tsooko (Oct 15, 2009)

Joe 
You bring up an interesting point concerning the magnetic downforce causing increased shoe wear. I hope that the braid is a good solution and follow your experiments concerning it.
At this point there are only two test tracks using this wire. Kihm's and mine. Both are very short being ovals cut on 2' x 4' formates. Yet with hundreds of laps being run and hours of time put in this wire is showing great promise, reduced shoe wear only being one of the pluses. Truly there is a need for a longer track, preferably built by someone other than myself or Kihm.
I would like to say that I am so impressed that I now have 3000' of it in my house and will be using it on my next track build.

I have been gifted a wizzard storm car that has so much downforce it sucks up the track as it goes around the track. Unfortunately It was so much fun to run I burnt out the brushes and cannot use it for testing on this wire. Brushes and a new arm are on the way. I'll let you guys know how that works out. Also Hornet and Todd are coming up soon and I am sure they will have something to say about the wire too. Some ground sucking, high mag cars will come with them and some no-mag BSRT's. That should be fun. So soon there will be much more to report. 
Truthfully? Right now anyone considering building a routed track this winter should give this wire some thought, I am.
Cheers Ted

PS: If you are interested, Joe see if Kihm will send you enough wire to build a small test track for yourself, say a small, single lane track on a 4' x 4' sheet of mdf. He has offered to send out samples, or take him up on his offer to loan you his test track. You could have it in a couple of days and try it out. 
Ted


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## Sir Slotsalot (Jan 23, 2010)

*Flat Braid Power Strip*



Grandcheapskate said:


> As I work on, and dream about, routing a track, my main focus is to use it with stock inline magnet cars - nothing exotic. The shoe wear that I get on plastic track with T-Jets and Magna-Tractions is fairly minimal. It is the magnet cars, and the downforce they apply, that can really wear out pickup shoes on rail in my opinion.
> 
> Anyone who has ever used an Aurora Super Magnatraction chassis (these are inline chassis) knows the pickup shoes wear noticeably within the first 5-10 minutes. No rail configuration is going to help them.
> 
> ...


Joe:

I have often thought about flat braid myself perhaps in a steel material for Neo cars. I would probably have to use JB Weld to keep the braid firmly planted on the track surface. Sounds like a laborious endeavor though.

Kihm


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## tossedman (Mar 19, 2006)

I too am looking forward to seeing this round wire in action. I like the idea of no lock wire and since I have a knack for breaking 0.020 bits this seems like a new option. I'll do whatever works on my new track. More later.

Todd


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## Grandcheapskate (Jan 5, 2006)

Tsooko said:


> PS: If you are interested, Joe see if Kihm will send you enough wire to build a small test track for yourself, say a small, single lane track on a 4' x 4' sheet of mdf. He has offered to send out samples, or take him up on his offer to loan you his test track. You could have it in a couple of days and try it out.
> Ted


Hi Ted,
Right now I have no interest in building a routed track with any type of rail. If I ever do, then I would look real closely at the flat vs. round wire data. If I can get the braid to work well (and my test oval worked pretty well for a rough first test), that will be my material of choice.

Thanks...Joe


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## Grandcheapskate (Jan 5, 2006)

Sir Slotsalot said:


> Joe:
> 
> I have often thought about flat braid myself perhaps in a steel material for Neo cars. I would probably have to use JB Weld to keep the braid firmly planted on the track surface. Sounds like a laborious endeavor though.
> 
> Kihm


 This thread has my progress (such as it is) with laying braid...

http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/showthread.php?t=291479

Once I used an iron, laying braid, and getting it to stay put, was very easy. It only took a couple minutes to lay out a 2x4 oval using regular Elmer's carpenter's glue. Once you get the hang of it, there's no mess at all. I haven't used the test track much (you get pretty bored running a small oval), but the braid has not come up anywhere using stock magnet cars (Tyco and Lifelike).

If you use a super sucker, then I don't know if the glue I used would hold. It seems to be down pretty good. Of course there is also non-magnetic braid which wouldn't care what kind of car you were using.

Braid is not the standard for HO either and is no doubt more finicky, and a greater departure from conventional rail, than round wire. There might be many people who would not want to run on a braid track. But each of us should do what is most fun for ourselves. In the little testing I did with magnet cars, I like the way they run on braid.

Thanks...Joe


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## Dslot (Sep 2, 2007)

Gee, I was kinda hoping it would be black ...










-- D


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## Rolls (Jan 1, 2010)

How 'bout a simple chart of the rail-related care-abouts customers might have and then some data on how this rail type stacks up against other rail options? 

Care-abouts should range from basic and quantitative (electrical conductivity, magnetic reluctance, ...) on to track building considerations (ease of obtaining consistent rail height, ease of routing for and laying in of rail, ability to bend horiz and vert for curves and elevation, ...) down to "living with it" issues (maintenance required, appearance, ability to transfer current to pickups, pickup wear...). 

Could be a collaborative effort, too... argue out the relevant parameters, then fill in the data as we go, knowing it'll take longer for the stuff that's not real well known or understood just yet. 

However it's done, it'd be nice to make progress on evaluating options for rail choice, which seems agreed to be an important part of track building.


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## Tsooko (Oct 15, 2009)

Good point Rolls

My friends from Calgary were up to-day and we ran some amp draw tests on the Ni/Fe wire. It has been pointed out that the nickel/ iron wire acted as a resistance wire. The amp drop over a short length were significant. 1' created a 5+ amp drop. We never tested volt dropage. Over a longer distance ( 30' ) the amp draw was not that much more., Perhaps 6 amps. Again voltage drop was not tested.
It seemed to me that the amp draw was not linear . We, all three concluded that this wire is not for the hard core racer where high amp draw motors and high neo mag-force chassis are being used. It was also noted that for the home builder this wire would work well as long as power taps were used every 8' - 10'. A slight disappointment to me as i was hoping to get away from doing power taps. I understand the power taps are a common occurance on longer tracks both store bought and routed continuous rail. Sadly the temperature measuring device battery died so even though we ran a car for a significant amount of time ( 10 minutes ) we could not get a reading. but the others agreed that in was not hot to the touch. Sorry for the failure to provide a scientific result.
We did do a test on the stitching wire and found that the amp loss over a short piece 1' long was not as bad as the ni/fe but was about 1.5 amps. We didn't test a long piece as the weather was very cold and after shivering for half an hour in the wind outside we retired to the warmth of the igloo to do other fun things slot car related. 
It is still apparent that a longer track must be built with this ne/fe round wire to further test out it's properties. 
Oh yeah a comment was made that this round wire would be relished by the t-get crowd as it facilitates the sliding nature of the cars and would be easy on the tires. Or normal car owners with low mag force cars as they run great on the test track using a tomy tri- power pack with a 1 amp capacity. 

Cheers Ted :wave::thumbsup:


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## SwamperGene (Dec 1, 2003)

Excellent report, Ted. :thumbsup:


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## Hornet (Dec 1, 2005)

Actually those were voltage drop tests Ted.
Kihm,i'm not gonna say to much as Ted's already said most of what we found,but i think you should do a test for yourself,it might surprise you,it is a pretty high resistance wire.
My first clue came when i dropped a Neo Storm onto Teds test oval,and even with the tires off the track there wasn't enough juice making it through the rails to turn the arm over.
So you might want to do a few more tests for yourself:thumbsup:

A bit off topic,but you guys gotta meet Ted,he's a riot,and i had a great time up at his place,but packrats ain't got nothing on him.
The drillpress in the kitchen was good,but then i had to use his bathroom,and guess where his table saw is,he he he,the kitchen table has been turned into a hell'va sized vacumn former,and more high dollar R/C planes then you can count,like i say,ya just gotta love him.A slotcar lovers paradise
Ted i really enjoyed today,and i'm looking forward to our next get together
Gonna bring more clothes next time
Rick


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## tossedman (Mar 19, 2006)

Yeah, what Ted and Rick said. I just stood there and held stuff while they did all the work. Did my best to look intelligent and nodded when necessary. Thanks for the good day Ted.

Todd


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## Rolls (Jan 1, 2010)

Sounds like you're doing some great testing! I'm trying to picture how you're hooking up the wire for the amp testing and where you're measuring. Can you say a little more about the setup for testing?

Curious in Calif,

Rolls


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## Hornet (Dec 1, 2005)

We did voltage drop test Rolls:wave:


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## Rolls (Jan 1, 2010)

So you put a fixed current through the wire and measured the voltage required to drive that current? Or maybe you put the wire in series with a resistor and measured the voltage drop across the wire? Something like that, right?


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## Rolls (Jan 1, 2010)

I was thinking maybe the bigger cross sectional area of the round wire would offset some of the material's lower conductivity. But maybe not enough to even things out.


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## Hornet (Dec 1, 2005)

Yup,put roughly 6.7 volts to the rail at one end,hooked a motor to the other end,and measured the drop between the two with a meter.
The drop on a one foot piece of wire was roughly 5.5 volts,6.7 to 1.2 volts and the motor would just barely spin.


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## Hornet (Dec 1, 2005)

The bigger surface should be of some benefit too,needs a little more carbon in to the mix to work though


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## Rolls (Jan 1, 2010)

I got it now. Great info. Thanks!


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## Tsooko (Oct 15, 2009)

OH! Volts, EH? Ok. I'll blame it on the cold.  Chilly it was.
Sorry about that.
I have noticed that the brush wear is less on the Suzuka track with flat rail which I also run at reduced voltage. About 10 actually.

So that explains why they don't wear or carbon up on the ni/fi rail beside the fact that the wire is so smooth and shiny.

You guys sure wore me out. I did learn alot and love the raisin cookies .Thank your wife for me, Hornet!
Hey ya gotta stop giving away all my secrets. I keep my mess to myself. 
Trains, Planes and automobiles / Ya gotta love em all. I never did show you the trains.
And talk about pack rats Todd and Rick brought up so much stuff the van hardly had any room left in it. Ya gotta see the driver's station Rick showed me. Or the picture of the Electrolytically controlled track that is a power controller by itself! Man what a maze of wires underneath that puppy!!!
I really enjoyed yesterday and look forward to another time when you guys can come up. You are welcome anytime.

Cheers Ted:wave:


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## SwamperGene (Dec 1, 2003)

Hornet said:


> The bigger surface should be of some benefit too,needs a little more carbon in to the mix to work though


There are some pretty good research papers on this Rick, the problem is that Invar36 or NiFe36 was designed specifically for dimensional stability across wide temperature variations, not conducting electricity along small wires. The carbon content is purposely kept low because it throws this dimensional stability way out of whack, even in small amounts. 



Rolls, "alloying" base metals does some crazy things, and this has provided a superb example of just how strange it gets. Nickel on it's own is a very good conductor, and iron's not too shabby either, but when the two are combined the resultant alloy is a rather horrible conductor. Look at the charts on these pages for some interesting reading. Invar (36% Ni/Bal. Fe) shows very poor conductivity numbers despite the excellent properties of the base metals: http://www.tinaja.com/glib/hack61.pdf


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## Rolls (Jan 1, 2010)

Good stuff, Gene. 47 ohm/ft for 10 gauge (from Fig 2.) is a lot. And wow, what a difference from either base material... You can multiply the resistance of Ni by that of Fe and you still have to double that to make it to NiFe's resistance. Alloying yields some pretty surprising results. 

Hmmm... I wonder if electrical conductivity and dimensional stability just don't go together... molecular structure and all that.


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## Dslot (Sep 2, 2007)

SwamperGene said:


> Look at the charts on these pages for some interesting reading. http://www.tinaja.com/glib/hack61.pdf


What an informative table ... 
I wish, in addition to music wire (spring steel), it had included mild steel, at least one stainless steel, and phosphor-bronze. (I know - I could look those up if I reeeely cared).

I'm inclined to say that if you really like the rail's other properties, high resistance can always be overcome by making frequent power taps. Of course, if you _*really do*_ lose 5 volts over a foot of wire, you'll be soldering taps every few inches (or using a live copper lock-wire); but I'm having a hard time imagining a physical-electromagnetic process that gives a 5v+ drop over a foot of run (with no significant heating), but less than an additional 1v drop over 30 feet of the same stuff; I suspect the 1-ft measurement was erroneously high, possibly from poor contact with the meter's probe.

Speaking of which, how easily *can* you solder to this stuff?

And, of course, I could easily live with a bit of extra resistance if the stuff was *black* or dark grey all the way through, like some alloys.

Anyway, thanks for the data, Gene. I like watching the way you think about things. :thumbsup:

-- D


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## Hornet (Dec 1, 2005)

Thanks Gene,that's an eye opening article.
I was surprised though at how much voltage drop there was,even in a short little one foot piece.
My idea of fun though,doesn't include being able to make toast on my slotcar track:thumbsup:
Dslot,if i'd upped the voltage, there would probably have been a bigger voltage drop on the longer run.I only ran 6 volts and 1 amp through the wire,if i'd run 18 or 24volts through it i think it would have shown a bigger drop.Doesn't take much of a conductor to run 1 volt through.The differance between the 2 was about a 1/2 volt,but i think if i'd hit the wire with more voltage,the differance would have been greater then
BTW,my meter leads are always clean,and i do have a bit of experience using them:wave:
Personally I haven't tried to solder to it,but Ted has,and it didn't look to hard to solder to.I didn't notice any excessive melting of the track at his solder joint,but i also didn't give it a wiggle to see how solid an attachment he got,but nickel usually isn't to hard to solder to


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## Hornet (Dec 1, 2005)

Dslot,i just did the same test using supposedly 0.020" X 0.103" rail (which actually measures out at roughly 0.019" X 0.98" on my calipers),and the voltage drop on it was only 0.2 volts,and the room temp is quite a bit warmer here then outside at Teds,75F compared to 35F and windy at Teds yesterday.
Figured i should give something as a comparision.
I should of done a higher voltage drop test,but i actually lost interest in the wire pretty fast yesterday,the first test with the car on the rails,and not enough juice to turn it over,and then the test on the short piece pretty well took care of any interest i'd had in the wire,and i'd went into the test hoping it might be a usable alternative,:thumbsup:
But for what i run,it's not a viable alternative 
Rick


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## Dslot (Sep 2, 2007)

> _*Hornet* sez:_
> My idea of fun though,doesn't include being able to make toast on my slotcar track:thumbsup:


Chuckle.

 Hmmmmmm.... I wonder if I could get away with routing a track into the dinner table if I sold it to the TM as a high-tech digital, integrated plate-warming system to keep guests' food from getting cold during the course of the meal. Hmmmm...

SEND ME A HUNDRED FEET OF .020 NICHROME WIRE, *STAT!* (And put it on the HOUSEHOLD EXPENSES charge card.)



> BTW,my meter leads are always clean,and i do have a bit of experience using them:wave:


Woops. Very sorry, Hornet. It was just a knee-jerk guess based on my own experience; I traditionally have trouble getting the same reading twice on a VOM. I certainly didn't mean to cast aspersions on anyone's skills or experience.  Mea culpa, bubba.



> ...but nickel usually isn't to hard to solder to


 I know - nickel's the stuff they plate onto other things to make them easy to solder to. But alloys have unpredictable properties sometimes, so I thought I'd ask. 

Thanks for the clarifications.:wave:

-- D
[So you have to _clean_ 'em, huh? That could explain some of my problems...]


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## Rolls (Jan 1, 2010)

The wire is a passive component and will have a linear voltage drop with increased current. I'd say the motor is the wild card here, because it is pretty non-linear with things like back-EMF going on. I'd guess there was a lot less current running through the 30 ft. length of wire, which would account for the smaller voltage drop. It would be better to test the wire with a resistor, but most folks, and I'm certainly one, don't always have low-ohm high-power resistors handy. If the wire is indeed Invar and the chart lists 10gauge Invar at 47 ohms per foot, any of our home tests should just confirm that.


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## Tsooko (Oct 15, 2009)

Arrrggg
You guys are going to hate me!!!
With D-Slot's question I turned my track over to tug on the wires really hard to see if they would come loose and they didn't. To attach the wires I drilled a hole through the sintra and dropped the wire through the hole on either end of the track slot and twisted the wires together. Using a liquid flux and very thin solder and a 35 watt iron, soldered the wire together along with a 14 gauge electrical wire without trouble and not enough heat to melt the sintra. Very easy and quick.
Now the hatey part. Since I was fooling with track and the wires I decided to do my own test with my el cheapo voltage meter.
So I cut off a 1' piece of the Ni/Fe wire. I turned up the afx tri-power pack to expert ( 24 volts, 1 amp ) and turned up my voltage regulator to high and tested the output. See Gene I'm learning. Output with no load is 24 volts.
I attached the 1' piece of wire to the positive post and then put the leads of the voltage regulator to the end of the wire and the other lead to the power station post to see if the voltage drop was the same as we got with Hornet yesterday. 
Guess what I got for a reading. Yep 24 volts. No voltage drop at all .Not what we got yesterday. Now I am confused. I tried this many times and the results are the same. I know you won't believe me so I took pictures.
The first is the unloaded volts. the second is the volts with the 1'wire 
the third is a better shot of the ni/fe wire attached but a lousy shot of the voltage meter
I tried to get the power pack,the wire and the voltage meter in all the shots.

Cheers Ted


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## Hornet (Dec 1, 2005)

You need a load on the system Ted,that was what i was doing with the motor.
You have to hook a load into the system after the wire,then test the voltages at both ends,one test where the leads attach to the front of the rail,and one test where the leads attach to your load.
It's the rude and crude way of testing,but for our purposes suffices
Rolls odds are you got a resistor capable of doing a resistor test,think about it for a minute,you'll figure out where you got one


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## Tsooko (Oct 15, 2009)

Ok. More fuel for the fire. The lane I have is 8' around. at the power tap the voltage it is 24. Half way round at four feet, it is, wait for it, 24 volts. I got pictures of that too and will post them if you want. There isn't any resistor or fan motor or car. I don't get it. Am I right or am I doing something wrong here? The wire alone should give a voltage drop if it is resisting the current flow, yes?
I did check the volt meter by adjusting the voltage regulator and it does change.

Ted


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## Tsooko (Oct 15, 2009)

Opps .Didn't see your post Rick before I posted the second half. I am going to town tomorrow. So what can I buy for a resistor to make this work? 
Ted
Hey I got a 10 watt 100ohm resistor here that I was going to make a controller from. Will that work?


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## Hornet (Dec 1, 2005)

Ted try popping an axle out a car,and setting it on the rails,pin the controller wide open and test the voltage at the hook-up point pins (white and red pin,not black),then test the voltage at the power rail right in front of car,while it is running,you should see the differance then.This isn't putting much of a load on the system,a slotcar with the axle out doesn't usually take to much juice to run,but it should be enough to show the differance.You need to take the red probe of your meter,and touch it to the hot rail and the black probe touches to the brake pin,the hot rail "should" be the left rail if you were sitting in the drivers seat of your slotcar
Save your money,lol


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## ggnagy (Aug 16, 2010)

Hornet said:


> Ted try popping an axle out a car,and setting it on the rails,pin the controller wide open and test the voltage at the hook-up point pins (white and red pin,not black),then test the voltage at the power rail right in front of car,while it is running,you should see the differance then.This isn't putting much of a load on the system,a slotcar with the axle out doesn't usually take to much juice to run,but it should be enough to show the differance.You need to take the red probe of your meter,and touch it to the hot rail and the black probe touches to the brake pin,the hot rail "should" be the left rail if you were sitting in the drivers seat of your slotcar
> Save your money,lol



Ok... The first time i started reading this through, I was thinking "Wouldn't popping the axle out of a car, and setting it on the rails just result in a short?". I was assuming that "it" referred to the axle, not the car. :freak:


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## Rolls (Jan 1, 2010)

Use the 100-ohm resistor. Then just measure the voltage at the tri-power pack's output and at the resistor. That'll tell you what voltage dropped across the wire and also what current was going through it.


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## Tsooko (Oct 15, 2009)

Thanks guys. I'll try both ways. I just want to know how to do my own testing, then I'll not be putting my foot in my mouth so often.  :lol:
Ted


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## Tsooko (Oct 15, 2009)

Ok. Me bad. The car trick did it. A mega-g at the center point of the track ( 4' ) gives a 2.5 volt drop. Thanks again. I learned something.

Gene, sorry bud . Peace between us?

Ted


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## Hornet (Dec 1, 2005)

Before i forget Ted,turn the voltage down to the low setting,a freewheeling slotcar motor,even a stock motor,can hit some pretty outrageous RPM numbers on full voltage,enough that if you've got any shakey winds on the arm they could give you trouble,to increase the load,throw more cars on the rails .
If you want to save some money and a trip to the city,a resistor controller "can" be used to do a resistor test,you just need some way of getting contact between the hot rail and the white alligator clip,maybe something just heavy enough to hold the alligator clip on the rails,like a book,then you can hook the black alligator clip back to the red pin,pin the main controller wide open and test the voltages at the two ends,i wouldn't recomend taking your time at this test,as things can get hot in a hurry
The test either way,resistor or car,should be done at the farthest point from the power taps.

Crap trains,where in hell are they,i didn't think it was possible to get anything more in the door.
The amazing thing is your memory,i don't how you do it,but you know where in hell everything is,that's the part that really amazed me,:thumbsup:
The wife says no problem,and she's glad you enjoyed the cookies,had to get Todd outta there he was starting to gobble them up pretty good:wave::wave:

Being a one finger typer i missed your above post Ted,but i'll leave the info up for you,even though i don't reconmend doing resistor tests on existing track rails,the potential's a little to big to hurt something,a resistor test on bare wire out in the open is okay,but even there things can get warm in a hurry,they are the more accurate of the 2 tests,but there is also more potential for harm


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## tossedman (Mar 19, 2006)

Ted, were you eating Diane's cookies as you did this test? Because if you weren't the results may be off. Try them again, a few more cars on the track and a cookie in your mouth and all ought to be good. 

Todd


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## SwamperGene (Dec 1, 2003)

No problems here Ted 


as long as I get some of those cookies


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## Tsooko (Oct 15, 2009)

You guys made me laugh out loud!! There are some cookies left but I don't think they will last the nite.:thumbsup: Yummmmm! Certainly not past the F1 practice tomorrow, sorry Gene.

Ok. More info. I did the test on the Suzuka track with the flat rail ( .098" x .0195", copper coated stitching wire ) using the same car and setting the voltage to 24. Good thing I didn't see Hornet's last post I might not have tried it out. LOL.
At 4' the voltage drop was .5 volts. At the center which might be 10' there was a little more but I can't tell what it is as I have a analogue meter. Perhaps another .25 volts, so .75 volts total. So way less resistance. I do have some flat wire Todd provided that has no copper coating but it will be some time before I can try it out.

I still want to do a longer track with the ni/fe as there are alot of differences in the way the cars run and wear. less maintenance for car and track.
Sometimes on the flat wire I have to push the car around for 4 or 5 laps before it is clean enough to run the cars for several laps in a row.
'nuff for now 

Cheers Ted


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## Hornet (Dec 1, 2005)

Awright your getting the testing figured out Ted:thumbsup:

Gene,before my dad passed away he used to drive 5 hrs for my wifes cookies,i got a good buddy who's a pretty high up detective in the city police force,he asked her if she put crack in them as he figures they're addicitive,i've never ran into anybody yet who doesn't like them:thumbsup:
If i could get them down to you,you'd get some,i figure they might be enough to drag you up here for a visit:wave::wave:


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## Bill Hall (Jan 6, 2007)

Hmmmmmmm...I've been lurking this thread with great intrest.

So tell me; what is voltage drop across one of those cookies?

We're 60 posts in and the truth finally comes out..."It's a cookie conspiracy and no data can be taken verbatum 'cuz y'all were geeked up on delicious baked goods." 

I'll have to throw a racketeering charge in as well, as I wont be able to sign off on this project unless my bribe arrives in a timely fashion.


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## tossedman (Mar 19, 2006)

Bill, it's impossible to measure the voltage drop across one of the cookies due to the fact that they seem to disappear as soon as they come out of the bag. I'm sure if you ask Ted right now for a cookie he'd say "Cookie? I ain't got no stinkin' cookie!". They're like vapourware. Here for a bit... and then...gone!

But they sure are good!

Todd

ps - Best thing about these cookies is that I get to taste 'em from time to time!


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## noddaz (Aug 6, 1999)

*Oops, an error me thinks...*



Tsooko said:


> Joe *snip*
> *You bring up an interesting point concerning the magnetic downforce causing increased shoe wear.* I hope that the braid is a good solution and follow your experiments concerning it.*snip*
> .Ted


The magnetic downforce does not _directly_ contribute to the pick up shoe wear. The magnetic downforce allows for stronger pick up springs, which directly cause increased shoe wear... I might be splitting hairs here... But I did it anyway...
I will go back to 1/32 cars now... 
Scott


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## Peacefield (Jan 22, 2008)

It's an irrelavant contribution to the discussion, but I thought I'd say it anyway. I wish there was a solution like this for sectioned track. I have a large scenic layout and don't aspire to have routed, but constantly cleaning the track (especially when you have to deal with trees and underpasses) gets pretty obnoxious and it prevents me from enjoying my racing as much as I should.

How cool would it be to have something that could be laid over a clean set of existing rails that would allow me to come down and run anytime without dead spots or needing to clean?


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## dsherack (Nov 28, 2010)

*Wire resistance*

What is the resistance in ohms? 
Typically measure per 1000 ft. by most manufactures. 

Thanks!


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