Home Strip

Lab81,

I think you are off to a good start with your home drag strip project. I bought the routed track sections for my track from TKO, and overall I'm very pleased with the product. There are a few things I'd have done differently, but that's just the price of experience.

I have the TrackMate DP2000 timing system you are considering, and I've found it to be easy to use and trouble-free (so far, at least). No glitches, had it up and running in a few minutes. It's only fault is that it loses the comm port every time I load the program; I just ignore the error message and it works fine. The only drawback is the price -- more than I paid for my track sections!

As for the power supplies, I think that the older TrackMate analog supplies were better. I have a 30-volt/10-amp system that I bought from Daniel several years ago. I also have a newer digital power supply that I bought from Omnitron for testing chassis on the workbench. When I connect a multimeter to the output on the digital supply while running a car, the voltage is all over the place -- it's seems like the circuit is so sensitive that it's constantly regulating the voltage and amperage to compensate for the car's current draw, then adjusting again for the higher voltage in a constant loop. Not good! I prefer my yester-tech regulated analog supplies, which deliver a steadier voltage.

I think a 5-amp supply would be more than sufficient for the HO drag cars that are popular with this group. Now if you're gonna run unlimiteds, maybe not . . .

Hope this helps,
Rick V.