Fairways Racing Complex Forum

O'Brie and Steve joined me yesterday at FRC for a marathon session of trying to sort out the power difference between the inner and outer lanes. I started lowering the track at around 2:30 PM and finally had it raised and packed away around 8:00 PM. In the process, we found some broken solder joints where I had joined track pieces together in the past and lots of discrepancies in electrical resistance between track pieces, all of which we rectified. We also replaced the malfunctioning pit entry track piece and cleaned rust off the pit lane track pieces.

Having done all of this and more, we were disappointed to find that there is still a definite power difference between the two lanes when we tested it before packing up. We're still racking our brains to try to figure out the problem. Our next thoughts are to try some more jumpers on just the outside lane and as I write this, I'm thinking that maybe I should remove the PowerBase and check all its connections. I'm toying with putting back my PowerBase in place of Jafo's own which is currently in use.

Here are some pics I took during the work. We had already put back large sections of track that had been removed when these were taken.

O'Brie and Steve working on the front straight where we joined the straight sections just before and just after the PowerBase (upside down in the pic) with wires soldered to the track rails but with connectors that can be unclipped:


Some of the track pieces that have jumpers, disconnected from their adjoining track pieces:


Tools on the workbench with the all-important liquid refreshment present:


Jumper section marked with a "J". I was going to mark them all but only ended up marking two:


Second marked jumper section:


Sometimes things got complicated:


The new cables joining the front straight with their tiny white connectors add to the existing array of wiring under the PowerBase:

A good evenings work pity we did not resolve the main issue. I hope the 3 or 4 more jumpers to the outside lane will do the trick. It is hard to determine the cause of it with a digital track as treritically all lanes are joined and should be equal??? We checked the voltage and ALL sections of the track were equal. So we split the track and still the same. We then turned the power off and disconnected the jumper base then checked the resistance between each section of track and that is when we found the broken solder joints etc. you would think that that would do it as we are 99.9% sure that we got them all....but no still a noted difference between the two! Is the power base at fault??? Who knows? If any of you guy have any ideas please share them.

Hey Gordon,

I have to mention here - sorry how I didn’t call (or even message you) about not showing up at FRC on Saturday evening. It so happened i was in Maraval around 11:30 am visiting a customer (Golden Bell Restaurant) at Royal Palm Plaza and was also remembering your 2:00 pm invitation at FRC ...

The customer I had to visit, needed a case of Beef Ribs urgently and when I (seeing about) reached the Roundabout (from the RBC direction) plus noticing the amount of traffic at that point ... Who would believe it could take another 45 minutes from the roundabout to Royal Palm ..!

Anyway - after seeing about customer and having to deal with such intense traffic that should have been a few minutes of driving. I left Maraval a little after 1:00 pm and thank goodness it didn’t have any traffic (whatsoever) heading out.

My original plan was to go home (long before 1:00 pm) after that customer, have a bath, put on clean clothes and head back to Fairways Maraval but after such an ordeal of bumper to bumper traffic ... I simply switched off my car and didn’t feel like doing anything else after.

Sure you would understand and kind of knew that O’Brie, Steve and you would be enough manpower for the FRC job at hand.

All in all ... thanks for the invite and sorry I couldn’t make it.

Luke

That said Gordon and reading up your’s and O’brie’s track maintenance report ...

Could the problem at hand stem from this post / point ... four (4) plus years ago ..?

• viewtopic.php?f=9&t=724

Just thought I should mention because it maybe something to consider.

Luke

Luke wrote: ↑Sun Sep 23, 2018 6:45 pm That said Gordon and reading up your’s and O’brie’s track maintenance report ...

Could the problem at hand stem from this post / point ... four (4) plus years ago ..?

• viewtopic.php?f=9&t=724

Just thought I should mention because it maybe something to consider.

Luke

Thanks for thinking about this possibility Luke. I feel that if the PowerBase were at fault, both lanes would be equally affected, not just one fast and the other slow. Anyone else have thoughts on this?

Thanks a lot guys i do appreciate your efforts, i am sure its a loose connection some where that you will eventually find , thanks so much see you all soon bye Ram.

Ok Guys. I am ready to attack the track again when ever “de boss” wants to. My thought is to literally join all the track together in large sections with the soldered braid jumpers and through the table short jumpers on the assembled sections. No dependence on the continuity through the track connections again! I will also like to review the jumpers again and test all for proper contact etc. Finally if that’s not an improvement then we can all pitch in for a new Power base but i suspect that that will be of no use if the track is not 100% first!

Good suggestions there O'Brie. I'm 100% with you. Let me know if and when this work will take place and I'll be there .
Steve

O'Brie wrote: ↑Sun Jan 20, 2019 4:54 pm Ok Guys. I am ready to attack the track again when ever “de boss” wants to. My thought is to literally join all the track together in large sections with the soldered braid jumpers and through the table short jumpers on the assembled sections. No dependence on the continuity through the track connections again! I will also like to review the jumpers again and test all for proper contact etc. Finally if that’s not an improvement then we can all pitch in for a new Power base but i suspect that that will be of no use if the track is not 100% first!

We could potentially do this on this coming Saturday afternoon. We'll talk about it this week.

This Saturday is good for me. Let us make sure that we have all the wire and braid, terminals solder etc. before we start. I will be passing by Peake on Saturday morning so I could buy what ever is missing. Put on de thinking cap!!