A Crazy Thought

sidewinder · Post by **sidewinder** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 7:28 pm

I was at a slot car club (yeah they still exist, blew my mind) and you wouldn't beleive how fast some of those cars are. I was wondering if anyone knows anything about them. How much power do the engines draw? would it be something that could be adapted to a zap? they have "rare earth magnets" and tiny little brushles motors and lots of other proformance mods. HO scale looks to be about zap size, even though they evidently measure scale differently.

I wonder if I still have my crappy old Aurora set?

Teppudama · Post by **Teppudama** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 3:02 am

I have wondered this myself, but since I don't have any slot car clubs in my area, I had no one to ask.

crazydave · Post by **crazydave** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 8:37 am

In a RC the motor draws current through the PCB, because the PCB has resistance. In a slot car the motor is basically wired straight to a 12v rail. There is a high current with very little resistance, so the motor doesn't need to draw as much current, the current more so forced fed so to speak. Therefore slot car motors have a lot more winds and are sluggish in RCs, or at least that's the theory as to why Epoch's motors suck.

ibjamn · Post by **ibjamn** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 9:58 am

HO is also smaller than ZipZaps and bits. ZipZaps are a slight bit bigger than S scale. S scale being more like Hotwheels size.
HO wheels might be a bit more scale on a few zips, but some of us have been using gearing from slot cars.

crazydave · Post by **crazydave** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 10:42 am

I think most the guys that have used slot car gearing had some kind of FET mod, or at least multiple cells. In my opinion going below the 7:1 range with the stock motor and PCB starts to get a little sluggish, but with the FET mod, they can easily pull KITT Racer gears, which are in the 3-4:1 area, similar to most slot cars.

Slor car things can be adapted to bits and zips. Superfly used some slot wheels on one his cars way back when, and if you figure out how to fit RC stuff under a slot car body, that'd be pretty cool. Anythings possible with a little imagination.

SuperFly · Post by **SuperFly** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 11:03 am

I think the most realistic possibility along these lines would be to graft the front end and pcb/rx of a bit/zip to a Sizzler chassis. Hot Wheels also makes a similar car to a Sizzler that is a little bigger.

The reason I think it would be do-able is that they are already plafoms designed to run on battery power. Sizzler motors seem like they would have huge potential.

sidewinder · Post by **sidewinder** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 1:10 pm

I just checked out sizzlers at target and there abot $8 maybe I'll give a hybird a shot...thanks.

SHAUN · Post by **SHAUN** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 3:29 pm

Theres no such thing as a brushless slotcar.

sidewinder · Post by **sidewinder** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 6:44 pm

like I said I have no ieda I was just listening to a bunch of enthuiast brag about how fast their cars were...maybe they were having a little fun with the new guy.

Murdoch · Post by **Murdoch** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 10:45 pm

obviously, because you can't run a brushless motor without an ESC.

BilboBaggins · Post by **BilboBaggins** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 11:26 pm

Murdoch wrote:obviously, because you can't run a brushless motor without an ESC.

It would require a circuit board to pulse the power to the brushless motor. So technically you could conceivably build one, but know of no slotcar guy who would want the extra weight.

I used to run 24th scale and there cars running a 155 foot "King" track under 2 seconds, the fastest class I ran was running 3.5 sec with a 50 turn arm.

The top fuel funny car drag guys were running the scale quarter mile (55 feet) in under .6 seconds. My fastest drag car was a little over a second and it wasn't the fastest in class.

SHAUN · Post by **SHAUN** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 1:45 am

In my truck I'm running low 12s and high 11s. Ive been winning by consistently hitting 1.245 sec. Your reaction time can make you loose the race. I also have a bit to much in my slot cars my truck is sitting a few dollars under $250 right now.

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