Scalextric basics

[wildoliver]

I'm sure there are some chaps on here who know a bit about scalextrics.

I bought a while ago a large box (well about 4 large crates actually) of scalextric.

We sold a load of it off to repay our costs and left ourselves with a large set.

However to be honest it's not very good, it's classic track, the track is dull in places and if we set a large track up it loses power at lots of places round the track.

The track is certainly a bit used and tired but I don't recall this problem from being a kid and my old track was certainly not well looked after.

We now have somewhere to set a set up properly on a board and leave it assembled. Is it worth faffing around with my classic track and getting the connections perfect or will I notice an improvement from some new sport track and the benefits that brings? I'm not bothered about going digital, to be honest just a figure of 8 or similar track will do us with a few cars.

[DIW35]

Dirty track will definitely lead to power loss. Clean the track as well as making sure that the track connectors are clean and making good contact when you slot the pieces of track together and all should be good.

[Evangelion]

You can get jumper cables, so that if a car is on the opposite side of the track from the controller, the current hasn't got to go the long way round to get to it.

[marcosgt]

...Or plug in a number of transformers...

Look on ebay, you will find plenty of cleaning fluids (there's some pink stuff which is very good at cleaning the track surface and sanding block to bring the slots back to life.

M

[RAClNG SNAKE]

wildoliver said:

I'm not bothered about going digital, to be honest just a figure of 8 or similar track will do us with a few cars.

I'm sure I said that this time last year too, but seem to have got a bit carried away.

It is possible to get Classic track working well if you can clean the rails without damaging the surface too much. As the previous poster said work on the metal connections to ensure good continuity as well. The pink track cleaner is called Plebys but it is no longer for sale. Any track cleaning kit that includes a scourer or sanding block will remove any remains of plating meaning that regular cleaning is required. Look up Inox MX3 (about £5.50 online) as this light oil will protect the rails from moisture.

Plenty of people are happy to stick with Classic, however getting good pieces is getting hard now. I switched over to Sport mainly because Classic track pieces warp easily which can cause understeer type deslots. The down side is that Sport has less grip so you need to work on your tyres to keep them scrubbed and clean to avoid oversteer type deslots. Get the balance right on either system and you will be happy though.

One final point, if you intend to run modern cars they tend to have a deeper guide which can bump along the bottom of the slot on Classic because it is shallower than Sport.

Edited by RAClNG SNAKE on Thursday 6th December 21:30

[wildoliver]

Thanks for all the advice.

I think the way forward is a used sport set off ebay in good condition and sell all my old gear to cover part of the cost.