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Post by frankenstein on Sept 12, 2019 18:43:25 GMT -7
Welp, when your trying to cram every inch of track into a certain space to get 1/4 mile......you guessed it, the age ol problem of getting these rockets to stop becomes an issue.
I remember seeing a thread on here ions ago where people had some creative ways to stop there cars. I can't find it.
We are getting faster and its becoming a problem.
Shut down at this time is 44" of dead track now. I currently have the wires crossed under the dead track. (It does not seem to do much).
About mid way down the dead track, I have a long slanted middle post (gets lower towards the back of the track) that a folded towel sits on top of (like a slanted roof). Cars enter and get wedged in. Not sure if that could screw up the shoes or the car over time.
Behind that is more towel and thin foam.
I heard putting in thicker rails helps (magnets grab) . Im looking into that.
Other then cutting a hole in the wall... Im out of ideas. lol
Real interested in seeing what you guys do . If its not to much trouble please post pictures.
Thank you!!
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Post by frankenstein on Sept 13, 2019 9:57:30 GMT -7
wow 54 views and no takers...lol I guess most have plenty of shut down to just roll out.
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Post by AJR on Sept 13, 2019 12:23:36 GMT -7
wow 54 views and no takers...lol I guess most have plenty of shut down to just roll out. Patience frankenstein...patience. You will get your answers. Give people time to soak in your question and answer it. I saw your post but have not had the opportunity to reply with anything that might be helpful yet. I've actually been trying to find the thread that you mentioned because I remember there being some good info there. I too deal with an even shorter shut down than you have and I'm only running scale 1000'. I get creative with the towels to help slow the cars. One thing that sometimes gets overlooked when trying to stop cars quickly with towels or foam is the gears......especially on the pancakes. There is so much inertia that when the chassis stops, all the internals want to keep spinning. I have had pretty good luck with my towel and foam layout, but I'm limited on what I can run. Funny that you mention cutting a hole in the wall because that is exactly what I might do to extend my shut down. Dave632 has used flat metal for his shut down at Smoky Mountain Dragway. In my opinion that is probably the best thing to do with a shortened shut down. The metal surface really gives the magnets something to hold onto. I am going to continue to look for that thread and will post it here. Have you posted any pictures of your track? We would like to see it. |
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Post by AJR on Sept 13, 2019 15:14:52 GMT -7
I found this info. This shows Dave's setup that I talked about. I believe he also has the metal strips set up for dynamic braking, but not completely sure about that. Here's the link to this thread. I believe this to be the best setup for a shortened shut down....IMO. nitroslots.com/thread/4232/cars |
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Post by dave632 on Sept 16, 2019 9:10:47 GMT -7
Those pictures pretty much show how I stop the cars from 60+ MPH without breakage. Those are 2 metal stop strips comprised of 4 3' 1/8th" by 1" steel strips. Before that there is 3' of dynamic braking. The catch box is foam and cloth padded and in front of that I usually put a heavy piece of cloth. Total stopping length is about 72".
If you only have about 44" I would not suggest running cars that run much over 30 MPH and using the steel strips and a good catch box.
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Post by frankenstein on Sept 16, 2019 12:16:39 GMT -7
I found this info. This shows Dave's setup that I talked about. I believe he also has the metal strips set up for dynamic braking, but not completely sure about that. Here's the link to this thread. I believe this to be the best setup for a shortened shut down....IMO. nitroslots.com/thread/4232/carsGreat idea! I was going to just replace the metal contact strip with a larger bar. That is really supplying metal for the magnets. Thank you for finding this thread! |
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Post by frankenstein on Sept 16, 2019 12:25:53 GMT -7
Those pictures pretty much show how I stop the cars from 60+ MPH without breakage. Those are 2 metal stop strips comprised of 4 3' 1/8th" by 1" steel strips. Before that there is 3' of dynamic braking. The catch box is foam and cloth padded and in front of that I usually put a heavy piece of cloth. Total stopping length is about 72". If you only have about 44" I would not suggest running cars that run much over 30 MPH and using the steel strips and a good catch box. I like it! Far more aggressive then what I had planned. But this would work much better. Im guessing Home depot lowes carry's these strips. 72" is the way to fly. But I just don't have that real estate. So we limit ourselves to the fastest of something around 36ish mph Thanks |
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Post by dave632 on Sept 16, 2019 13:09:14 GMT -7
I bought those strips at Lowe's but I imagine Home Depot carries them to. I countersunk the screws into the metal to make a smooth stopping
area and I mounted them slightly lower in the transition area between the track and the metal. None of the cars all the way up to Super Comp
can hit much over 36 MPH so you should be OK up to there. I am the only one so far that runs the Unlimiteds so there is nothing to worry about there.
I had one of the 60+ MPH cars go thru everything and hit the wall but outside of knocking the body off no other damage occurred. I improved the
catch box and have not had that happen again.
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Post by frankenstein on Sept 17, 2019 10:26:21 GMT -7
I bought those strips at Lowe's but I imagine Home Depot carries them to. I countersunk the screws into the metal to make a smooth stopping area and I mounted them slightly lower in the transition area between the track and the metal. None of the cars all the way up to Super Comp can hit much over 36 MPH so you should be OK up to there. I am the only one so far that runs the Unlimiteds so there is nothing to worry about there. I had one of the 60+ MPH cars go thru everything and hit the wall but outside of knocking the body off no other damage occurred. I improved the catch box and have not had that happen again. Excellent info. it just dawned on my........60+!! Holy sh*t. I have a modded tyco running about 4.50 and it only hit 36 through the beams (Im about 5" short of a quarter mile). But 60, thats bananas! So the next question is how to prevent your cars from turning to dust. lol Awesome stuff my friend. Thank you for your help. I see a trip to Lowes in my very near future. |
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Post by dave632 on Sept 17, 2019 13:10:02 GMT -7
I run at a max of 20 volts with 30 amps per lane available on a 15.5' scale 1000' track. My ET record is in the .23 range losing the tires somewhere on the track. The actual record for a scale 21'1/4 mile is over 100 MPH, Al Pink on this site actually held the record at one time. He told me they ran at 30 volts with industrial batteries,
who knows how many amps were available.
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Post by frankenstein on Sept 29, 2019 17:17:26 GMT -7
 OK, this is strange and had us scratching our heads... I went out to home depot and bought some metal (zinc coated) 1 1/4 flat pieces (absolutely magnetic). Before I started drilling and gluing I thought to test it first. ...and Im glad I did as it did not help the cars slow down at all. When you place the car on the metal strips, you would think its going to rip the magnets out of the chassis, it grabs that good. However (and heres the funky part) the car still rolls just as much/easy as when I push it on the old regular track. With all that down force I thought "this has to work". I tried a few different ways to test the resistance on the all metal track vs the old regular track and it was virtually no difference. Even if it was minimal, not worth the effort so we bailed. It only made a difference when I used dynamic breaking on it (just laid a cooper wire across the 2 metal pieces). We were shocked and still bamboozled. I know others are using this method. Any idea as to what we are doing wrong? I added a picture to show the temporary set up. There is NO gap from the powered gray track to the all metal track. What your seeing is electrical tape on the ends of the metal pieces so it would not butt & touch the powered track & short it. I figured this will be an issue with the dynamic breaking. We have tape on top also because the shoe could extend & touch powered and non powered at the same time. ![]()
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Post by sjracer on Sept 29, 2019 17:34:15 GMT -7
I'm curious, what chassis(es) are you running? How did you set up your dynamic braking? If the chassis have little or no magnets traction like original magnatractions or even extractions I have bar stock in my shutdown and the cars with lesser traction magnets tend to coast further. I would suggest dynamic braking. However, did you reverse the polarity of the lanes in your shutdown area?
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Post by dave632 on Sept 29, 2019 18:23:49 GMT -7
Some cars such as blazin brakes have no regenerative motor braking due to one way clutches in the rear. Old AFX and T Jet
have a little. This may be your problem.
The more traction/motor magnet downforce you have the better steel stop strips work.
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Post by frankenstein on Sept 29, 2019 19:43:02 GMT -7
I wanted the steel to help grab the magnets, more down force and slow the cars down. Dynamic was going to be gravy. Remember I have a short shut down I wanted better then what I had So I laid down the steel strips. The cars crab it hard. . On paper, this has to work. Even though big down force, no difference in stopping.  Yes dynamic braking Works but I wanted these steel strips to add to it. I see others using it so I’m thinking,... I got to be missing something We ran dr1’s, 440’s & dash which all pounded the towel The tjets did as expected, no bottom mag so they slowly cruised into the towel. Then I added dynamic braking and it helped (magnet cars) BUT the cars stopped the same as the regular track with dynamic braking. Im wondering if the dynamic breaking would work better on the all metal strips vs regular track? |
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Post by dave632 on Sept 30, 2019 9:25:09 GMT -7
No reason you could not add dynamic braking to the steel strips as there is no power applied to them.
Just short the steel bars together. In fact you gave me the idea to do that on my track.
Some of my cars still slam into the stop box, especially when they start to exceed 20 MPH.
At 40-60+ they can really hit hard. Make sure your bodies are mounted well and your stop box is well padded.
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Yes dynamic braking Works but I wanted these steel strips to add to it.