Fun with 4 cars on 2/4 lane PowerPasser Artin 1/43
Or
Demolition Derby ˆ la Artin
How's that possible?
v Thanks to a great tip from Ken (check out his great web site); I realized that you could have more fun than you thought with the Artin 1/43 PowerPasser. If you want more details about what PowerPasser is and what it does please check here.
v It turns out that you can run four cars on two lanes (or almostJ), using the Artin 1/43 PowerPasser set-up.
v All you need is the following track pieces: 2-lane PowerPasser pit in track, part number 4915 (left picture) and 2-lane PowerPasser pit out track, part number 4916 (right picture) at SlotCarWorld. I believe that these track pieces are standard in the PowerPasser Brickyard and Indianapolis sets.
v In between those two track pieces (on the 4-lane side) is where you set-up your terminal tracks pieces (i.e. the track pieces where the power and the controllers get connected); you will need two of them. This gives you four lanes of running. On two of the lanes you can have one type A and one type B car (red and yellow guides) independently controlled and on the other two lanes you can have the same thing, thus you can run 4 cars.
v Before and after these track pieces you obviously have only two lanes. However, because it is PowerPasser; in one of these two lanes you can run one type A and one type B car (red and yellow guides) independently controlled and on the other lane you have the same thing, thus you can still run 4 cars.
v On the four lane sections, you can use the PowerPasser lane changing tracks and this is where you have to use some passing strategy.
v Of course, the main drawback (it is not digital after all ... but it is also one tenth the price of digital) is that on the two lane sections, you are running two cars in the same lane without any possibility of passing. You will have to bump draft (or tailgateJ) the car in front of you until you reach the four-lane section.
v So, this gives you the ability to define 4-lane passing zones on your track, with other 2-lane zones where the driving is much more like a good old 2-lane set-up.
v I decided to set-up something like this. I combined track pieces from 3 different PowerPasser sets and ended-up with a track that is the perfect setting for a demolition derby. Since I set it up with my 4 year old and my 8 year old, it has it all. The loops, the crossovers, the jump, the bridge with the up and down humps, and three 4-lane sections with PowerPasser lane change track pieces. This is definitely not intended for the race oriented drivers, but it sure was a lot of fun. And YES, there were some passing strategies involved while driving around that track!!!
v Because pictures are worth a thousand words or more, click on any of the following picture to zoom them
v A view of the track:
v A different view of the track:
v Close up on some PowerPasser Indy cars and the 4 to 2lane track piece
Variation on the same theme
v You can use different track pieces from Artin 1/43 and obtain a slight variation of the same concept. The following two track pieces are available: the Split piece (left, part number 4551, $10) and the Join piece (right, part number 4550, $10). These are the parts I used to build my automated pit entry lane.
v As it stands, the split track piece works as follows. A car enters from the right of the picture (above, left). Depending on the setting of the points, the car will exit this track piece either straight or turn across (left and down on the picture). However, as the car goes through the points, it will change their setting/position such that the next lap around, the car will go the other way (i.e. first lap, car goes straight, second lap car turns, third lap car goes straight, and so on). The way it works is that as the guide pin goes through the points it pushes against their side and forces them to switch over to the other direction.
v This can be used in a power passer set-up as well. Conceivably (although it will not work in all cases, specially when cars de-slot and/or lap each other) it could be used to penalize and slow down the fastest car and send it to the side while the slower car comes later and goes straight. Or it could be the contrary where the first car, arguably the fast car goes straight and the next car is sent to the side.
v If you use these track pieces in this configuration, make sure they are wired properly (one of mine was not) or you'll end up shorting all lanes together. This is not dangerous but only annoying.
v Hugh from NZ (Hugeone22on the board) noticed that if you use this type of lane changing track piece only, you could do away with the spring mounted pin guides and by just adding the diode to convert any standard Artin car to a PowerPasser car. To do this you will actually need:
o Diode: 1N4007, about$0.1 (Why Artin uses 1000V diodes in there, I can't figure out, but since they are so cheap J)
o Capacitor: 330mF/16V, about $0.40
The following parts are somewhat optional as they are not found on all the Artin 1/43 PowerPasser cars, but here it is for completeness:
o Two resistors: 2.2 Ohms,10%, 1/4 W about $0.05 each
o Two capacitors: 0.1mF, 20% about $0.1 each
o So for less than $1.00 and a little bit of solder, it is indeed easy to convert electrically a standard car to a PowerPasser car. I have not done such a conversion myself (yet J) so I can not guarantee that it will work quite as expected as it assumes that the motors in the standard and PowerPasser cars are exactly identical.
Another neat track piece:
v Finally you can also use the following track pieces with the Power Passer cars and set-ups: part number 4903 and 4904. These are the classic pit lane track pieces in Artin 1/43. As can be seen on the leftmost picture, a blue lever (bottom of the picture) actuates a mechanical point in the track that send a car either straight or to the sides.
In conclusion, the possibilities are not endless but this sure adds a twist to the layouts you can build for PowerPasser cars.
Last Update: 1/10/07 Drop me a note