Tuesday 2 July 2013

Technical Glitch

I was going to spend today catching up on filming to show you all these new cars racing around.
I've lost the charger cable for the video camera though, and as the camera hasn't been used for several months all the batteries are dead.

Friday 31 May 2013

MP4-12C GT3 Review

 I reviewed this a few years back, video is on our you tube channel. I wasn't impressed with the road version, slipped and sliding all over the place, rattling magnet and generally to slow and not what I would expect from a super car of this calibre at all.
Now it looks the same, its is a MP4-12C GT3, I was expecting the same bad traction sliding about slow uncontrollable model I had attempted to use before.
On closer inspection though you will notice several changes to the model. For one the spoiler, an yes even at this scale it can make a difference, the clicking magnet issue is still there I still think it is to low to the track and any rails sticking up will scar the underside, but it now holds the track a lot better. Is this the spoiler?
I'm not sure if it is faster but as I still have both models available to me when I do the next video I shall be comparing them. 

At this moment in time I think this is a better model than the road version, I like the colouring but any car in the gulf colours always looks good to me. Just something about that blue.

Wednesday 22 May 2013

Lotus Evora C3387


No video yet for this model, am working on it.I have had time to take it for a run though.
Put through its paces on table 8. Anderstorp.
It appears to have very little grip and likes to push out on the back end resulting in de-slotting especially though inner radius 3 corners. I thought this might be a magnet issue so cracked it open to discover it has the thinner of the magnets inside. Though there is a second magnet bay behind the motor for you to move this magnet to. Attempting to do this I had a hell of a job removing the magnet, being a thin magnet I was more worried about snapping the magnet than the car, so was being careful and I still managed to crack the underpan along the magnet bay. It would appear the plastic here is very thin, and while the make up of the whole underpan is very rigid compared to a lot of the cars out there this point is rather flimsy and brittle.
I got he magnet out though without to much damage. Removed the motor and the back axle in order to get at  the slot, and the rear light PCB came away with out any force as it had not been glued into place.
Had to use a bit of brute force to get the magnet back in though.
Car rebuilt and back on the track, it increased its speed due to the increased down force of the rear axle from the thin magnet in place, but still likes to slide out on the radius 3 corners. 
So is this how the car is going to be? Wider corners causing the back end to slide out and the car to roll over?
With this all in mind as I set up to do my Video review in the coming days and how I like to run my cars as the came out of the box I shall be putting the magnet back, placing it on the shelf and waiting for the camera man to arrive. I will be doing 2 videos with this car, one showing the magnet in its original place and one with it at the back. I'll also add them under here with more thoughts once I have them done. 

Out the box thoughts.
Nice looking car, like the black like decals and design.

Plastic feels a lot stiffer than what I have seen before.

All the weights to the rear of the car.

Pretty quick in a straight line. 





Tuesday 30 April 2013

Ford RS200 Review

There is a video review for this car.
Since this video was made we have been running these cars on the Catalunya lay out. (Table 3)
I still like this car, its back end twitches a bit through corners and is a little harder to handle than the 6R4.
This is not my issue, it has been on the table for two weeks now and I have had to rewire them all at least once.

Now this would not normally be a problem and now I have adjusted the wires it appears to be holding on better.

The fact I had to do it is annoying. The wiring curls up between the digital plug and under the lights putting tension onto the point of join, this never used to be a problem when the wires went directly into the pick up. Now though the pick up has a thin solid strip running out which is connected to the suppressor as digital cars should have two suppressors in them, one for the track and one for the motor. This stops the digital chip being fried by the electro magnetic interference.

It does mean though that there is less room for movement with the wiring internally between pick up and plug. Then having the cable either crammed under the lighting board and the axle causes the cable to not freely move, though centring the guide blade  out of turns it does mean that the wires are being strained and then they break. Which means the car stops running altogether.

Of course on a home circuit you will probably not be putting these cars through the long sessions that happen here. So this might never happen, but if you do the first thing I would suggest is carefully removing the wiring and putting it above the lighting board, I do mean carefully I managed to break the holding point for the lights on one car attempting to do this, car runs fine but it is still a shame it snapped so easily.

Bah this minor technical issue the car is a good looking model, it is a little tail happy but all in all a good Group B rally car.

Scalextric Racing Review Blog

As I don't always get time to video new cars before they sell out, plus as some of the cars I review are no longer in production I decided to do a written blog as well.

This will cover cars, track, repairs, and other things with in the Scalextric product range.