Slot Car Dragon Timing Systems

I heard that they were selling under someone else now. I had issues over a year ago when I tried to purchase the system. There are other ways to go. Viper, MaxTrax, ViaSue. Or if you can do basic soldering, you can build a Drag Race Coordinator system for $50 to $100.

Drag Racing Coordinator ( DRC ) is a very flexible DIY system. You can go simple with a start and finish line or go big with prestage , stage, start , 60', 330',660', 1000', speed trap and finish line. Skillet ( Sam ) mentioned that the lights that trip the sensors are hard to find. True however they are not required. It all depends on the type of track sensors you use! If you are one who tears down an HO slot car and rebuild it then I believe you can get along with DRC.
Although I have worked in the electronics industry for many years ( retired for some time ) I wanted to make my installation of the DRC easier. I designed a PCB that plugs into the Arduino and also sensor boards. The connection between the two is done with standard RJ45 internet cables. The sensors mounted in the track need to be soldered to a small 2 wire cable which plugs into the sensor board. Almost a plug and play setup. My prototype boards are working well and I am waiting for the final PCBs to arrive so I can build them up and install them for final testing. I have chamged the user interface display to match how the NHRA displays for TV. As I progress along I will post more info. It really is a very nice system.

Hello Dynomike - I followed Sams and you postings from a while back. Some good information there. Not planning on marketing anything. If it all works out I will make the PCBs available who would like to roll their own or perhaps make up a few for some cars!
I tried using the same photo transistors Sam used and connected them just like he said and never got them to work. I had to add a pull up resistor to every pin on the Arduino to get it to function. Sam said he did not use pull up resistors. Tried the little sensor boards you can buy that have the IR emitter and detector side by side and although they worked they would not detect a dark body car! So I ended up designing my own detector board which has four sensors on it. The prototype works fine. Waiting now for the PCB boards to arrive so I can build and test out the entire system. I will see if I can post a 3D of the sensor board and the board that plugs into the Arduino Mega.
Alan

Yha my sensors get soldered to wire and run back to arduino, one side ground one side pin number... if it don't work switch ground and pin number wire. Other than that. I've got 4 timmers out now and building another now.

I'm using a mega arduino, wonder if thats why

I'm using an old SD2 but would not recommend Slot Dragon. Little pricier but you might check out dragitanywhere.com easish install or so it seems.

No I pay more for the original ones...
The clones hate DRC