Home Racing World

Hello to all,I'm going to be installing a drop in section in my track that changes it from 3 lanes to 1. Is there any special wiring that I need to do as far as controlling the car. I pretty much got the braid laying down as I am using wire nuts to connect the braid under the track. Just not sure if there is something I might be missing don't want to fry my wiring. Thanks in advance,Tim

Being a digital guy I don't think you can go from 3 to 1 lane in analog and still control your car. :think:

Dave

Are the braids insulated from each other? Are you saying that all 3 lanes collapse into one or they get very close together?

A different line thru the corners on each lap, that’ll keep you on your toes.

I think if you have a break in the lane contacts a little wider than the width across them, where each slot crosses, you’ll be ok. Assuming you’re analog with this.

Let us know how you like runnin it!

Thanks just hoping I have enough braid left to complete the job. Got a 4day weekend should make headway on this should be fun when done. Will get back to you and hopefully a video.

I had just submitted a post in this thread. I was thinking this was a digital track. I now see that it is analog so I just deleted the post as my info would have been incorrect for analog. :doh:
Randy

If I understand what you are doing, it should work fine. You are running an analog car on all your lanes and it will crossover to the next lane on each lap. It might be that you will need more power taps as your controller will only be powering the taps on the lane it is setup for. You might be able to make a set of plugs that you hook your controller to and then have a feed for each of the other controller stations to add taps where the other lanes are wired to their controller station. That may not be a great clear explanation, but you are basically tapping the other lanes thru their controller stations.

The drop in part i saw on a previous picture is not a 3 lane to 1 lane piece. It was a 3 lane switching lane piece, inside lane to outside, middle lane to inside and outside lane to middle.
Your question is 3 lane to 1 lane, so i am confused.
If Digital track I am pretty sure it will work since all lanes are powered and the chip in car controls it movement.
But your track looks like it is analog (I dont see any other lane change pieces) and changing the lanes will cause problems. you need another piece to move them back to the same original rail.
Think of it like this, on analog, put power only on the inside lane.
The inside lane is powered all the way around until the drop in part.
If the connection of the drop in part moves the powered lane to the outside and car continues on the same power all the way around the outside lane until it reaches the drop in part.
If the connection of the drop in part moves the power from the outside to middle lane, the car moves on the same power.
The same thing happens from middle lane to the inside.
Seems like you have a 1 lane, controller controlled track that the analog car will run on different lanes.
Is that what you are trying to do?

Let's try to clear up what this will do. I think it is a way to only run one car at a time on your track and have it run in every slot as it will change lanes with the new piece of track. It will start in the inside lane run a lap and at the new piece of track it will go to the outside lane for one lap, then go from outside to the middle lane, run a lap and move back to the inside lane. That will complete one trip thru all slots as and it will be three times around the track. I don't do digital, but I think digital should work the same. Is my description what you expect this section to do? I don't see anything else it could do. It will turn your 3 lane track into a one lane track, right?

You could use the drop in sections as your pathway to feed the power to all of the lanes. In the crossover drop in, you could wire it so all three lanes are fed into only one of the drivers stations. When you switch the sections out to have three individual lanes, the wiring in that section would be wired to receive the three individual feeds from all the drivers stations. If you use a common neutral to all lanes you could make those connections with a 4 pin flat trailer plug. I use 4 pin trailer plugs all of the time for removable sections like overpasses etc. If you plan to install a reversing switch in the drivers stations, you cannot use a common neutral to the lanes so a 6 pin plug would be needed.

Beware of any wiring scheme that leaves the other drivers stations connected to any lanes when you have all the lanes wired into single circuit. The reason is that if you leave an unused controller connected to any one of the other unused drivers stations, you will have a direct short at that controller since the unused controller is shorted out in the brake brake circuit when the trigger is in the off position :naughty: I guarantee, YOU WILL burn up the controller. Don't ask me how I know this :doh: By properly wiring the differing wiring schemes through each of the separate drop ins, you will avoid this hazard.

Randy, I think that would work, just don't hook-up any other controllers at the same time. Not even if you are not using them.