Hi, I am completely new to Arduino and have no idea what I'm talking about... but I was wondering if it is possible to use Arduino to make a pacer system for slot car racing which regulates the speed of a slot car over one lap and then repeats that information lap after lap?
Many thanks in advance 
Simon
Sounds like fun.
TBC you want to control a lap manually, but have all your throttle information stored so it can be replayed for subsequent lap after lap?
This will not be easy. Nor would any open loop throttle playback work. Once the car is either ahead or behind the precise location corresponding to a place in the recorded throttle, things will start to go bad.
There is no way the car will be exactly where it was last lap.
I believe to succeed will mean adding some kind of sensors so the process can know where the car is; the throttle would be stored in sections to be synchronized as the car met its target locations.
a7
Welcome to the forum
What you describe sounds possible, but there are a number of complications. In particular, how will the Arduino know where the car is on the track, how fast it is going and how will the Arduino be programmed with the required speed for that track position ?
Do commercial systems exists that do what you want ?
Hi,
Thank you so much for your quick reply! Yes, if that's possible, to control a quick lap manually and store that information to be replayed for multiple laps. I only really need to use one designated car as a pace car, but all my other cars are old-school analogue. I'm looking to build a slot track from scratch, although I have very little knowledge or experience in how to do such a thing, but I'm excited to learn!
Thanks
I think with couple of hall sensors and pwm driver it can be easily done (and with patience optimized).
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Hi, thanks very much for your quick reply! I'm very uneducated in all this but perhaps sensors dotted around the track would be the answer? I think Scalextric did produce a pacer system but I understand it just holds a constant speed.
Thanks,
Simon
FWIW, when we played with slot cars some years ago, never mind how long precisely, during practice we would tie a rubber band around one of the controllers and slowly increase the setting until the car cloud just barely hang on for the hardest corners.
Constant setting. Not a constant net speed, but…
… it was dismaying to find that the uncontrolled car was practically impossible to beat, and coming closer to beating it invariably meant zeroing in on our own unchanging throttle position.
Slow and steady wins the race, I guess.
Good luck with this, it does sound like fun.
a7
So this must be the Scalectrix digital system, with constant power to the tracks? You could never have a pacer car on the old analog system we had when I were a lad!
I seem to remember that with model railway/railroad systems, eventually a widely used digital system called DCS or something became adopted by many manufacturers so that track, controls and trains from different manufacturers could be used. And this standard meant that Arduino could be used and Arduino libraries were written to make it easy for beginners.
Is there something like that for Scalectrix?
Why not ?
Question to me?
This can be done by timing each lap and adjusting speed accordingly.
This simulation was for correcting the speed of a 360 servo between two desired limits. Comments and links in the heading comments. To use the simulator; press the button at > 4 seconds to increase, press the button at < 2 seconds to decrease. Pressing the button >2 and < 4 makes no change.
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Before yo changed it your post ended with
You could never have a pacer car on the old analog system we had when I were a lad!
which is what I was questioning
If you keep the replay tight with like a deterministic timestep I think you could get away with just one or two verification stations.
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I have thought about the rubber band solution and, if all else fails (particularly my technical ineptitude!), I will resort to just that...
Thank you so much for replying
Simon
Thank you!
Thank you! I have a lot to learn I think!
Thanks,
Simon
Ah, ok.
I suppose you could, in theory, have had a pacer car on a separate track to the race car, with the old analog system. But not on the same track, because the handheld-controllers controlled the voltage to the track, and every car on the track would receive the same voltage, and that would determine their speed. So the pacer car on the same track as the race car could not have controlled it's own speed, it would always be slaved to the hand-controller.
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I do have an old analogue Scalextric Pacer system Scalextric Pacer - Run any car as an Analogue Variable Speed Pace car | SlotForum
but it was a bit hit-and-miss! It also had a ten-second program limit. I'm hoping to build a slot car track of my own, for my old classic cars, so don't think I can integrate it. I'm not sure if there's a generic pacer system that can be used with different manufactured slot tracks.
Thanks
Simon
OK. I see what you mean
Thank you so much for this
Simon