Gareth0123
You'll need 16 pigs to do the job in one sitting!
- Messages
- 1,559
- Location
- Norwich, Norfolk, UK
Pedal powered slot racing cars/Scalextric…. Thinking out loud.
I have never seen one in person, but I have looked at a few photos and videos on the internet, and I would like a two lane pedal powered slot racing track. Anyway this has been sloshing around in my skull and churning the grey matter again, and I would very much like to make one.
Currently I lend out (Free of Charge) Gareth’s Glorious Gala & Fete Games, and I make these available to all local charities, lodges, clubs, associations, scouts, guides, youth groups etc. for their fund raising events and for activity sessions at the local special needs and elderly day care and social centres (just 800 metres down the road from me and next door to each other), basically I will lend my games to almost anyone who wants to borrow them to support and raise funds for a local cause.
The games I currently have available for loan include a Splat the Rat, Giant Table Skittles, Ring the Bulls, and a Wheel of Fortune. My friend and I are presently in our spare time making 3 hand cranked cord winched wooden racing Dragons. However, the pedal powered slot cars keep surfacing in this turbulent addled brain of mine.
Material wise nothing is a problem……….. I have a small steel fabrication business and I often work building wooden laminations, bending plywood, and working with basic fibre glass and carbon fibre composites, etc.
What I have: I was given a 1960’s American slot racing track complete but with the exception of cars. It has a little 240 to 12 volt transformer and the pistol grip speed controls. I also have 4 old stock (blue bodied) but unused Ryobi 18 volt speed/spiral saw tool bodies …… I actually bought one via eBay from the USA to replace my no longer working one and when it arrived there were 4 of them in the box, so I have decided to use one and keep a second, allowing me to strip the motors out of 2 of them…….. So far, so good.
What I want to do, and please bear in mind that I am thinking out loud here, to gain other opinions, pointers, suggestions and advice.
I want to build 2 “half” recumbent bicycle frames. Basically a recumbent bicycle with a chain driven front wheel in front of the peddler a bit like an exercise bike with a floor stand at the rear. I want to use a Sturmey Archer 3 speed hub and a braked 20” BMX wheel with a slick tyre to turn the friction drive generator made from one of the Ryobi 18 volt motors….. Got it?
The idea is that that driver/Pedal pusher directly controls the speed of the racing slot car by changing up and down on the SA 3 speed hub and then braking the BMX wheel, thus changing the generated voltage and therefore the speed of the car….. Got it?
So, designing and welding up the frames is going to present no problem: I build recumbent trike & quad frames and fabricate other steel components and sub assemblies for a couple of European brands, so no issues here.
Building the wheels should not present me with too much hassle……… although I’ve never built a bicycle wheel yet, always buying in made to order, but I am going on a wheel building course in a few weeks time. Apart from the spokes & nipples I have everything I need to build the wheels: SA 3spd Hubs, Brake assemblies, cables, levers, rims, tyres and tubes, etc.
OK, now we come to the motors I wish to turn into generators. There are no electronics to this cordless tool, just an on/off switch, so no variable speed gubinz to worry about, but it does have an output shaft that accepts ¼” collet bits: Router bits, rotary file and rasp bits, sanding drums, basically anything with a ¼” shaft. So I have the intention of using a drum sander body with a piece of bicycle inner tube stretched over it to make a replaceable friction surface, which will directly contact the tyre providing the drive for the generator.
So a motor turned becomes a generator: is there anything else I need know or to do to it?
I have never seen one in person, but I have looked at a few photos and videos on the internet, and I would like a two lane pedal powered slot racing track. Anyway this has been sloshing around in my skull and churning the grey matter again, and I would very much like to make one.
Currently I lend out (Free of Charge) Gareth’s Glorious Gala & Fete Games, and I make these available to all local charities, lodges, clubs, associations, scouts, guides, youth groups etc. for their fund raising events and for activity sessions at the local special needs and elderly day care and social centres (just 800 metres down the road from me and next door to each other), basically I will lend my games to almost anyone who wants to borrow them to support and raise funds for a local cause.
The games I currently have available for loan include a Splat the Rat, Giant Table Skittles, Ring the Bulls, and a Wheel of Fortune. My friend and I are presently in our spare time making 3 hand cranked cord winched wooden racing Dragons. However, the pedal powered slot cars keep surfacing in this turbulent addled brain of mine.
Material wise nothing is a problem……….. I have a small steel fabrication business and I often work building wooden laminations, bending plywood, and working with basic fibre glass and carbon fibre composites, etc.
What I have: I was given a 1960’s American slot racing track complete but with the exception of cars. It has a little 240 to 12 volt transformer and the pistol grip speed controls. I also have 4 old stock (blue bodied) but unused Ryobi 18 volt speed/spiral saw tool bodies …… I actually bought one via eBay from the USA to replace my no longer working one and when it arrived there were 4 of them in the box, so I have decided to use one and keep a second, allowing me to strip the motors out of 2 of them…….. So far, so good.
What I want to do, and please bear in mind that I am thinking out loud here, to gain other opinions, pointers, suggestions and advice.
I want to build 2 “half” recumbent bicycle frames. Basically a recumbent bicycle with a chain driven front wheel in front of the peddler a bit like an exercise bike with a floor stand at the rear. I want to use a Sturmey Archer 3 speed hub and a braked 20” BMX wheel with a slick tyre to turn the friction drive generator made from one of the Ryobi 18 volt motors….. Got it?
The idea is that that driver/Pedal pusher directly controls the speed of the racing slot car by changing up and down on the SA 3 speed hub and then braking the BMX wheel, thus changing the generated voltage and therefore the speed of the car….. Got it?
So, designing and welding up the frames is going to present no problem: I build recumbent trike & quad frames and fabricate other steel components and sub assemblies for a couple of European brands, so no issues here.
Building the wheels should not present me with too much hassle……… although I’ve never built a bicycle wheel yet, always buying in made to order, but I am going on a wheel building course in a few weeks time. Apart from the spokes & nipples I have everything I need to build the wheels: SA 3spd Hubs, Brake assemblies, cables, levers, rims, tyres and tubes, etc.
OK, now we come to the motors I wish to turn into generators. There are no electronics to this cordless tool, just an on/off switch, so no variable speed gubinz to worry about, but it does have an output shaft that accepts ¼” collet bits: Router bits, rotary file and rasp bits, sanding drums, basically anything with a ¼” shaft. So I have the intention of using a drum sander body with a piece of bicycle inner tube stretched over it to make a replaceable friction surface, which will directly contact the tyre providing the drive for the generator.
So a motor turned becomes a generator: is there anything else I need know or to do to it?
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Getting the alternator to work was a royal pain as I didn't understand the non-permanent magnet at first and it was a bit of a learning experience for me 
