Derby Talk

Am raising funds for the local senior citizen center. We bought 108 car kits (local merchants bought the kits) then they are selling them for $10 which includes their race entry ($4 forkit plus $6 for entry. Most if not all the merchants are donating their $40 for the kits. The orginal plan was to r...

That's what I kinda figured. Will take a tape measure tomorrow and actually measure height of trak each foot so Stan Pope can figure out the acceleration in G's. Saw a post of his calcs so now we can figure out correctly. I myself get lost with math. Would be interesting to be able to announce at th...

Either we got some fast cars or ?? Track is 42.5 ft from start gate to finish line. Start gate is 5.5 feet off the ground at a 45 degree angle, 6feet before it starts te curve which is 93 inches long. Aprox 29 feet of flat track. Best time was 2.963. I have a hunch the track is just FAST not really ...

been trying to make progress but keep getting smacked with glitches. I wired up the Swantech timers w/ IR emitters in the track. Worked great until I measured the current!! ouch!!!! meter says 200ma. added resistor to obtain 20 ma. now the timers won't reconize the leds. Not bright enought.] changed...

Well it is crunch time. I am finishing up the finish line bridge, installing timers, waiting for the Lane Brain unit to come back from Bozeman Montana (just over the hill). Wanted them to ceck it out as it seemed to have a glitch every now and then. Hopefully setting up track in parking lot of only ...

start tree works great, the start gates seem to work good.
Going to try out entire system this week after setting up track in bros video store. Kinda like advertising!!
Have a test n tune session say 5 days before the big race on June 30th.

Currently have a Lane Brain unit but it will false trigger or give erroneous results at time. Planning on putting IR emitters in track and IR doctors in bridge. My question is do I need to pulse the emitters? can I just change out the photo diodes w/ IR emitter leds? anyone else have similar problem...

Kinda disapointed that a pinewood derby car only goes 9 mph.
Based on an adverage car covering a 43ft track in 3 seconds.
I am curious as to where the figure of 3G's a pinewood car accelerates. Saw this posted somewhere??

here are pics of ongoing pinewood derby starting system. Each "driver" releases his/her car independently and tries to release on the green light (avoiding a red light) the solenoides should have been bigger (more pull) as these only pull 12 oz. The "cams" that the solenoids are ...

my thought is if the scale reads say 5 oz then the wheels are rotating freely. If the weigh scale reads low then the car is pulling away from the scale thus the wheels are not turning as free. The idea of the wooden wheel/1/4oz weight/eyelets sounds good but can't test actual car. My idea is just fo...

Got this crazy idea from reading about the wind tunnel for pinewood cars. Why not use similar for testing wheels, axle, lube preparation. It is a scale suspended above movable 8" track or plywood (a link belt/rotating track?) with a 5oz weight on it and tied to car under test. My thought is the...

That track material looks like a bowling ally.
did you get the wood from a bowling ally or ?
nice track

I found several mistakes in the first and second circuits.
this one is hopfully without mistakes.
Planning on etching a board to clean up my mess--wires going every where etc.

still need to add reset switches etc. It could be very easy to add a reaction timer to circuit. start timer moment the yellow light goes out and green light comes on. Also adding another voltage regulator for relays (the lights tend to use lots of current as present regulator gets hot, needs a heat ...

heres the schamactic of actual circuit. playing w/ designing a circuit board to clean up board as they have lots of cut and taped wire etc. http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g291/Doug-in-the-woods/pinestart2.jpg If someone wants to build then have at it. will put together a parts list and photos of ...