# Hot Wheels Video Racer



## jph49 (Nov 20, 2003)

My local Walmart has the Hot Wheels Video Racer on the clearance aisle for $24.90. Just thought I'd give a heads up for those who might be interested in them.

Patrick


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## ParkRNDL (Mar 20, 2002)

AUGH now I gotta see if I can find it... it was on my Xmas list and Santa didn't bring it, LOL...

--rick


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## ParkRNDL (Mar 20, 2002)

Finally pulled the trigger and bought one of these on Fleabay. Will keep you all posted...

--rick


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## Boosted-Z71 (Nov 26, 2007)

I looked at our Wallmart and they don't even have them.

Boosted


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## 41-willys (Jan 7, 2000)

it is fun to play with. I have been watching the stores and they have not be dropping the prices down that far. I was lucky and won 2 new unopened ones for 65 shipped on ebay


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## honda27 (Apr 17, 2008)

*ht video racers*

ok guys lets see a pic of it so we know what to look 4 ty


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## [email protected] (Jan 31, 2010)

Walmart in Iron Mountain, MI had 3. Honda if you want one let me know. I'd be willing to pick one up for exact cash price for you + postage.:thumbsup:

I'm headed up that way this evening. Let me know.


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## ParkRNDL (Mar 20, 2002)

ok, so I'm not Michael Bay. it's still in-car video... :thumbsup:






--rick


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## Bubba 123 (Sep 10, 2010)

ParkRNDL said:


> ok, so I'm not Michael Bay. it's still in-car video... :thumbsup:
> 
> Hot Wheels Video Racer test laps - YouTube
> 
> --rick


info on how u converted it 2 slot????
ty :thumbsup:

Bubba 123


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## ParkRNDL (Mar 20, 2002)

Bubba 123 said:


> info on how u converted it 2 slot????
> ty :thumbsup:
> 
> Bubba 123


I'm warning you, it's NOT pretty... :lol:

I wanted to get it rolling on rubber tires so maybe you could hear something besides the hard plastic wheels. On the vids I've seen previously, the wheels are VERY VERY LOUD. I didn't have the guts to take it apart and actually replace the axles, and I didn't have a good way to attach guide pins to it anyway, so I went and found something I could cut up and strap underneath it: a spare caboose from a Hot Wheels Turbo Train. I liked this because it had two guide pins, so it could be pushed from behind. It also came with hard plastic wheels, but the axles swapped out easily for Tyco HP2/HP7 fronts. These just BARELY fit under the Turbo Train body.










The original body mount was a screw post just above that hole in the center of the chassis. I wanted to try keeping the original chain-it-together system of the Turbo Trains so maybe the train could push it in reverse, so I needed the body to stay in the same position in relation to those little ball-retainer tabs at the ends of the chassis. Before I hacked off the domed top where the screwpost was mounted, I drilled a few holes and staked it together with a straightened-out paper clip. One of the plastic-coated ones happened to match the diameter of a drill bit I had. When I took the screw out, the paper clip seemed to hold it together pretty well, so I figured we were in business.










When I hooked up the Turbo Train engine to this thing and tried to run it in reverse, it got hung up and kinda "jackknifed" on some of the corners. I guess I threw the weight distribution off just a wee bit. So I went a different route for a pusher vehicle. A couple different tethering systems didn't work, but this one finally seemed to do the trick. Brace yourself, this ain't even good enough for Rube Goldberg:



















Now, I'm still getting lots of scratchy plastic wheel noise, but I'm thinking that may be because the US-1 truck still has hard plastic wheels in the front and way in the back behind the drive wheels. I got to this point after 1AM this morning and haven't had a chance to swap them out, but I'm not really sure if that's gonna make much of a difference anyway; I'm wondering if the noise is just from the axles spinning in the TT chassis. It'd be nice to hear the motor of the slot car instead of the clatter of the wheels, but I guess I can always edit in music or engine noises or something. Also, the jittery camera thing is a little annoying, but I suppose that's what you get when you mount stuff with rubber bands. It's a work in progress. I'll keep diddling and see if I can get it any better.










--rick


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## ParkRNDL (Mar 20, 2002)

*get out your motion sickness bags...*

it's VERY hard to do this while driving 2 cars at once. I gotta get my kids to help me. if they can drive a couple cars around slow, I can chase them with the camera vehicle...






--rick


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## slotcarman12078 (Oct 3, 2008)

Oh man, that looks fun!!! I think a little more light would help, and maybe going just a tad bit slower too. It's fun seeing your track from the car's perspective.. I especially liked the extension cord overpass. :lol:


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## HadaSlot (Oct 22, 2007)

Thanks for the tips Patrick and Rick. Found mine today in clearance. Sweet.


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## Bubba 123 (Sep 10, 2010)

ParkRNDL said:


> I'm warning you, it's NOT pretty... :lol:
> 
> I wanted to get it rolling on rubber tires so maybe you could hear something besides the hard plastic wheels. On the vids I've seen previously, the wheels are VERY VERY LOUD. I didn't have the guts to take it apart and actually replace the axles, and I didn't have a good way to attach guide pins to it anyway, so I went and found something I could cut up and strap underneath it: a spare caboose from a Hot Wheels Turbo Train. I liked this because it had two guide pins, so it could be pushed from behind. It also came with hard plastic wheels, but the axles swapped out easily for Tyco HP2/HP7 fronts. These just BARELY fit under the Turbo Train body.
> 
> ...


GREAT!!!

Idea, make a "Truck" using a cheap mattel slot chassis....
by putting a skirted deck over the chassis (c Harry Potter slot car figures
in mattel's Harry Potter "Quivitch (sp????) set....)..
and just fasten the video car ontop of it.. u also get magna-traction from chassis, and add a rear pin 2 "Truck" assembly....

this is w/ i did for a diecast 2 slot conversion of Gerry & Silvia Anderson's
"Super Car" by J/L....
using a cut down of a diecast clear plastic blister that comes on card

paint it & :thumbsup:

http://s1230.photobucket.com/albums...t Car Emporium/?action=view&current=012-1.jpg

Bubba 123


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## ParkRNDL (Mar 20, 2002)

Here's the problem with going slower: That's already slow. Think about it, that's a US-1 truck pushing it. But I kinda have that solved somewhat. The camera has two settings: outdoor is 30 frames per second and indoor is 60 frames per second. It defaults to outdoor when you turn it on, but if you switch to indoor, the 60 FPS is fast enough that you can feed the clip into Windows Movie Maker and cut it down to half speed without it being too jerky. Also, the lighting is a little better at that setting. I actually just shot a video this morning that way. I had two of my sons drive Tjets around fairly slow, side by side, and I followed them with the camera truck set on Indoor. Then I slowed it down in Movie Maker and I think it looks pretty cool. It's, um, currently in post production; I'll post it later today if I can finish it up between items on the honey-do list. 

--rick


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## ParkRNDL (Mar 20, 2002)

*NOW we're getting somewhere.*

maybe i should have substituted a Fairlane or Galaxie or something for the Impala, but this is more like what I wanted.






still, that whole thing was one uninterrupted clip. if i ever get around to REAL editing with different camera angles and stuff, it could get interesting. the only thing is, i could see that getting time-consuming enough that my wife would KILL ME...

--rick


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## slotcarman12078 (Oct 3, 2008)

That was cool!!! The first time hitting that right hand turn (the one with the 300 foot drop off the cliff on the left with no guard rails even) I almost lost my cookies. Other that that, it was a wild ride. I don't know why video can't record and play back at the same speed... My digital camera does the same thing and for the life of me I can't figure out why, or if there's even a fix for it.


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## sethndaddy (Dec 4, 2004)

Rick, your video's always rock.


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## Dyno (Jan 26, 2009)

I am SO getting one of those !!!


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## ParkRNDL (Mar 20, 2002)

Dyno said:


> I am SO getting one of those !!!


If you look around on Fleabay, you can get one BIN for under $30 shipped. 

--Rick


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## Dyno (Jan 26, 2009)

ParkRNDL said:


> If you look around on Fleabay, you can get one BIN for under $30 shipped.
> 
> --Rick


I just ran down to Walmart and snagged the last one for $26.48 out the door. I quickly tried it out by attaching it backwards to a US1 Trucking flatbed. It worked out well, but it is a little dark. The potential is going to be great. I was thinking about attaching one of the clips it comes with to a chassis via buddy clip or maybe even glue and just put the camera in the supplied case and clip it onto the chassis. The thing that worries me about this is that the magnets in the chassis might mess up the hard drive in the camera. Maybe someone else has a thought about this?


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## alpink (Aug 22, 2010)

Don, someone has used a key fob camera attached directly to a chassis and it seemed to work OK. search around here for that thread.
I have a few of the key fob cameras and am prepping a couple SRT chassis to hold them. 
I'll have to go to a friends house to test them though as i have no track.
the magnets shouldn't hurt the memory chip.


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## Boosted-Z71 (Nov 26, 2007)

I just got mine today on Ebay, $22 & free shipping 

Boosted


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## Dyno (Jan 26, 2009)

Heres a link to a quick tour of my track. No editing or music. I towed the camera on a US 1 Flatbed and removed the cab from the tractor so it doesnt obstruct the view. I will be making a nice edited version at my friends house with his four lane. Better lighting and multiple other drivers. I will do different camera angles and stuff. Should be pretty cool. This was the slowest possible speed I could drive the Tractor with a 90 ohm controller. Its a 36 foot lap. A good running stock Tjet lap is about 7.6 seconds. Enjoy. I edited the video in Youtubes editor to brighten it up a bit. It made the picture quality worse. The original was better. Oh well.


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## ParkRNDL (Mar 20, 2002)

HAHAHA that's awesome! ya know it never occurred to me that if you take the cab off a US-1 truck, the camera sitting on the trailer has an unobstructed view. maybe i didn't need to go to all the trouble of making a camera dolly that could be PUSHED. very cool! Maybe if enough people get these things, we can do a thread devoted to track videos...

--rick


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## foxkilo (Mar 27, 2008)

Yippie got one as well.

Got me fishing in the bay. Just 15 Euros. REckon it was got deal.

Will put it on a Faller City Traffic chassis. That one can go really slow. It has a reduction of 1/25 compared to 1/4 or 1/7 on the gear cascade in a normal Faller pan chassis or Tjet. It has diecast gearplate and a double layer of reduction gears.


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## Dyno (Jan 26, 2009)

Tonight I tried mounting it directly onto the bare US1 Trucking chassis and ran into a problem . When I started to go faster the camera would stop recording and shut off. When the camera was in the trailer and I went full speed it was fine. I then mounted it on top of an SRT chassis and had even more problems. I think that the motor magnets or the magnetic field caused by the Armature is somehow affecting the cameras internals. Anyone else have any issues yet? I think if you put a piece of ferrous metal between the chassis and the camera it may help but I'm not really sure.


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## foxkilo (Mar 27, 2008)

I'd say put it in a kind of metal mesh to create a faraday cage. Should do the trick.
IMHO the magnets are not the problem but the field coils on the arm. With increase in power the magnetic field in there gets stronger.


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## Dyno (Jan 26, 2009)

foxkilo said:


> I'd say put it in a kind of metal mesh to create a faraday cage. Should do the trick.
> IMHO the magnets are not the problem but the field coils on the arm. With increase in power the magnetic field in there gets stronger.


That's pretty much what I thought.


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## Ralphthe3rd (Feb 24, 2011)

*Rick's Layout...*

Hey Rick, that's a nice layout, and I really enjoyed watching the video, which takes alot of patience for me- because I (still) only have Dial Up service and a 56k modem on my 11 yr old PC. Anyway, since I might be coming to visit you this summer, my question is, what is the sharpest radius turns on you layout?



ParkRNDL said:


> maybe i should have substituted a Fairlane or Galaxie or something for the Impala, but this is more like what I wanted.
> 
> still, that whole thing was one uninterrupted clip. if i ever get around to REAL editing with different camera angles and stuff, it could get interesting. the only thing is, i could see that getting time-consuming enough that my wife would KILL ME...
> 
> --rick


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## ParkRNDL (Mar 20, 2002)

Ralphthe3rd said:


> Hey Rick, that's a nice layout, and I really enjoyed watching the video, which takes alot of patience for me- because I (still) only have Dial Up service and a 56k modem on my 11 yr old PC. Anyway, since I might be coming to visit you this summer, my question is, what is the sharpest radius turns on you layout?


It's a 4-lane with one 6/9 in each direction, right after one another. Everything else is 9/12 or 12/15.

For the first lap, the right-hander is at about 39 seconds, but the camera is on the outside lane there, so it's actually on a 9-inch curve at that point; the Caddy is on the 6-inch one. The-left hander is at 40-41 seconds, and the camera is on the inside lane of the 6-incher there, along with the Impala. (Did that make sense?)

--rick


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## Ralphthe3rd (Feb 24, 2011)

Yep, that made sense, thanks Rick :thumbsup:
PS- normally I despise 6-inchers.


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## Dyno (Jan 26, 2009)

Update, I was able to make a sheetmetal sled for the Video racer to sit on top of the US1 chassis. I still had the same issue, when the rpms of the chassis armature gets to a certain level, Camera will blink the light green once, then three times red and shut off. I am convinced it is an EMP from the armature interefering with the cameras electronics. I did a quick google search on how to block EMPs and tried wrapping the car in Aluminum foil. What do you know, it works well now, but how do you reach the buttons? I then tried to just put foil on the underneath of the camera and up the rear where the mini USB port is located and tried again. It worked perfectly the 4 times I tried it after. Rubber wheels on the front of the chassis helped with the grinding sound in the recordings. I also put a piece of electrical tape around the mic hole in the fashion of one of those sunroof wind deflectors and that helped with the wind sound also. I can clearly hear the motors rpms climbing and falling now. What I like about this chassis is that you can easliy make films from the chase perspective or from the perspective of being followed by simply turning the truck around. Its not the most pretty car on the track, but it works.


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## SCJ (Jul 15, 1999)

Dang it! 

Checked Walmart here in Bremerton, WA....nothing.

Had the wife check Easton Walmart....again nothing.

--------------------------
www.SlotCarJohnnies.com


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