# track is up, laptop power supply works better.



## Hoganflagle (Sep 21, 2019)

Hi;

Finally got my track put down and secured with clips. Lanes run great. When running a slightly slower car I discovered that the lane with the 19.5VDC 6amp laptop power supply runs faster than the lane with an 18VDC train power supply. I took the train power supply off and replaced it with an Aurora DC2 rated at 20 VDC and only saw a marginal increase in speed but still noticeably slower than the lane with the laptop power supply. With a hotter car it is not noticeable as I find myself holding back to avoid corner wipeouts.


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## phrankenstign (Nov 29, 1999)

Why do you have different power supplies powering each lane? Does the voltage to each car vary depending on how much voltage is being used by the other car at any one moment? If so, why not use identical power supplies for each lane/car?


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## Hoganflagle (Sep 21, 2019)

I am working on getting a matching laptop power supply for the other lane. 

Wanted to try a train supply first since it has a built in speed control for my grandkids but I am going to shelf that idea and go for a matching laptop supply with an in series wheel control instead.


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## Rich Dumas (Sep 3, 2008)

A 90 watt laptop power supply would have enough power for a four lane track unless you were running high performance cars. Since those are regulated you would not get any power surges or drops. I believe that in an earlier post that I mentioned that regular set type and train power supplies usually put out far less than their nameplate voltage when you are actually running a car, hence the difference that you have seen. Besides using a variable power supply for one lane you can use the same fixed power supply and drop the power using a chain of diodes, each one of those will drop 0.7 volts. If you connected ten of those in series you would get a 7 volt drop. If you connected the diodes to the track you could connect the wire from the power supply to an alligator clip and the alligator clip would be connected any place along the chain to get the desired voltage drop or to bypass the diodes for full voltage. I use 3 amp diodes, they are inexpensive, they only conduct in one direction, so they must all be pointed the same way.


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## T-jet (May 3, 2016)

Hoganflagle said:


> Hi;
> 
> Finally got my track put down and secured with clips. Lanes run great. When running a slightly slower car I discovered that the lane with the 19.5VDC 6amp laptop power supply runs faster than the lane with an 18VDC train power supply. I took the train power supply off and replaced it with an Aurora DC2 rated at 20 VDC and only saw a marginal increase in speed but still noticeably slower than the lane with the laptop power supply. With a hotter car it is not noticeable as I find myself holding back to avoid corner wipeouts.
> 
> View attachment 259609


That layout is awesome !


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## Milton Fox Racing (May 27, 2014)

T-jet said:


> That layout is awesome !


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## Hoganflagle (Sep 21, 2019)

*Thanks guys*

I appreciate the compliments. I would have to give credit to my Scottish heritage which is known for thriftiness. I had a limited area to work with but played around with trying to use up as much space with track that I could without doing a lot of vertical. 

I now have duplicate 19.5 VDC 6.7A laptop supplies, one for each lane and getting ready to put a wheel in series with one for the Grand daughter. Going to mainly run TJets as anything else is just way too fast. If I had a track layout 2-3 times the current size the AFX Magnas would be great but my wife would have a conniption:grin2:

Slowly working on improving track pieces and identifying any that are consistently having issues for replacement. Also working on improving chassis but waiting on tools that have been ordered.


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## T-jet (May 3, 2016)

Ok, but keep us posted!! We like pictures too. I have to figure out how to post some of mine also.


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## Rich Dumas (Sep 3, 2008)

Try posting pictures this way: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Qj7HKRDMpW9SgtW1a60pYSrEcxi1BL1H/view?usp=sharing


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## Hoganflagle (Sep 21, 2019)

*In work*



T-jet said:


> Ok, but keep us posted!! We like pictures too. I have to figure out how to post some of mine also.


Nothing to show yet. I pulled all the guard rails that are ground level with plans to replace them with striped aprons/runoffs. I made patterns by sliding copy paper under the curves and tracing and then transferring to 1/4 Luan. Have cut the patterns out from the Luan with a roto zip but still need to sand off the edges. Once that is done I will need to find some pasteboard that I can glue the patterns on to then cut them out. The Luan is not 1/4 thick just like 2X4s aren't exactly 2X4s. I have to glue on pasteboard to be able to bring the patterns flush with the track. On a few of the curves I plan on gluing down small walls of stacked tires. I have plenty of them along with a couple boxes of 1/4 00 rubber gaskets that look like Indy tires.

Once done I will post some pics.


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## Hoganflagle (Sep 21, 2019)

*Progress report*



T-jet said:


> Ok, but keep us posted!! We like pictures too. I have to figure out how to post some of mine also.


Progress has been slow as I am building a greenhouse for my wife's Guava.

Finished the overruns but still need to screw them down. Plan on taking a bunch of old stiff TJet tires and silicone them in stacks and mount them on a small piece of wood dowel that will have a small finish nail down the center. That way I can make tire wall barricades at three points on the edge of the overruns.


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## T-jet (May 3, 2016)

Nice ! How did you make the overruns in the corners?


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## Dslot (Sep 2, 2007)

.
*Hoganflagle* sez -


> Plan on taking a bunch of old stiff TJet tires and silicone them in stacks and mount them on a small piece of wood dowel that will have a small finish nail down the center. That way I can make tire wall barricades at three points on the edge of the overruns.


You might want to read two threads from 2009 -
*Anyone Make a Tire Wall?*
and
*Tire Wall - Cheap and Easy Solution* 
Based on some calculations in the second thread, I fear you may run out of T-jet tires earlier than you expect. That thread describes an alternative to gluing tire-shaped things together.

Best of luck. :wave:

-- David


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## Hoganflagle (Sep 21, 2019)

*over runs*



T-jet said:


> Nice ! How did you make the overruns in the corners?


 I slid a sheet of plain paper under the track into the corner and traced the track curve. Also marked where I had sideboard braces. I then cut the track curve out of the paper and retraced it on the luan and used a roto tool to cut out the over run. Put a sanding spindle in my drill press and used it to sand down to the trace line. I notched out under my luan where my side board brackets were with a hand router. I glued cardboard under the over runs to bring them flush with the track. then painted them. Did all the over runs that way and free handed the patterns.


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## Hoganflagle (Sep 21, 2019)

*Doing these tires is tiring.*



Dslot said:


> .
> *Hoganflagle* sez -
> 
> You might want to read two threads from 2009 -
> ...


Appreciate the heads up but I'm only doing about 4 corners so I should have enough. Time is what I'm short on at the moment.


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## Patrick32218 (Nov 14, 2019)

@Rich Dumas what exactly do you mean by high performance?

After about 25 year hiatus I have picked the hobby back up and setting up my home track to race with my 5 year old and the neighborhood kids.

I got a ton of afx magna tracktion, few t jets, old g plus, and Tyco hp2 hp7 and 440 x2 ... Along with a few of the auto world and life like offerings.

For when the adults come over to "Beer Race." I'm toying with the viper and wizard chassis... I am having a blast!

But as to the track / power supplies... I'm running the afx wall warts tri power on the highest setting. I am also moving to laptop power supplies when I mount the 4 lane track. So in order to have a diversity on the track , would 90 watt power supply on each lane be overkill or not enough???

Please forgive my lack of knowledge...


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## Patrick32218 (Nov 14, 2019)

So as I read more on the subject of power it seems that (generally speaking) anything below a 6 ohm arm and if using higher than lvl4 magnets...would really require more volts/amps... I am now assuming this is what you meant by high performance.


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## alpink (Aug 22, 2010)

that is a good perspective.
any car will operate better with more available amperage.
in my humble opinion, voltage increases are found to increase high end speed.
consider that many Aurora sets had 12 volt to 18 volt (with occasional 20-22 volt) power supplies.
and that was to operate two cars.
I don't know what the voltage or amperage abilities on current clot cars sets are, so I cannot intelligently remark on the newest designs.


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## Rich Dumas (Sep 3, 2008)

High performance slot cars would be the ones from BSRT, Slottech, Viper Scale Racing and Wizzard. Those cars have much more magnetic downforce than set type cars and may also have lower ohm armatures than those cars, so they use more power. If your power supply does not have enough power the cars will still run, but not up to their full potential. Set type power supplies are small for several reasons. A large power supply is going to be expensive and a small power supply is not likely to cook anything if something goes wrong. All of the set type power supplies that I have checked barely put out enough power for a single set type car, when you run two cars at once they may be starved for power part of the time.
Check out this article on power supplies: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1r_mey6LXg4kmp6sX4U3lU-fDA72pXhfj/view?usp=sharing


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