The Magic of Lane Change Plates

[kiklo]

This is the first 2 I have installed. I use color coding : blue is lanechange , black is racingline.

The 'forced' racingline, none straight, black is not bulletproof but it makes it a lot easier to take the racingline. WIP.

IMG_20200206_083753.jpg (63.35 KiB) Viewed 24868 times

The newwst itteration :

msplittt.JPG (32.86 KiB) Viewed 24868 times

The dark green piece is the blue put in place. It has a choice of 2 or 3 seating's for the wire.

[kiklo]

The dimensions are 100x18x2 mm. So using a 18 mm router bit at 2.x mm dept should make it easy with a 100 groove.

[kiklo]

I have been thinking on making the LC without 'plate' .

It will make making a track easier.

Here is a test piece routed with 0.7 mm bit. I works in test, but needs perfection and implementation in a test track to test at higher speeds.

IMG_20201021_092138.jpg (67.1 KiB) Viewed 23656 times

You can see I try to 'fence inn' the steering and guide it to one of the 2 output lanes. (running direction left in the picture.)

As you can see I cut the fence at a distance from the running wire to avoid the magnet to catch on 2 wires at same time and induce drag.

The fences are 'arc' to give the cars a direction pointing at the running guide.

[kiklo]

Hi all. A bit more on LC.

KISS all the way ?

Running bottom to top.
The wire do a slight bend to the middle, then change direction back to point at the 'straight' lane to give the car the 'i'm doing nothing path'.
So when it looses the wire it will end back to the normal lane, but if you steer to racinglane it will catch on that one.

It will give the straight line car a little wiggle but to me it looks like it simplifies the design.
And coming the wrong way from either lanes it will catch on at the end.

Can you see any disadvantages I don't see ?

[WesR]

Lane change diagram.jpg (7.3 KiB) Viewed 23622 times

Re. your earlier post Kim, I have tried many variations of this idea. The simplest is shown in the diagram. The gap between the wires is about 6mm. It works ok but you can get a bit of a wobble as the car goes through. The downside is that, if a novice driver turns the wrong way, the car will leave the track. You can have 'catch wires' on the opposite side to catch the errant car but overall I still find the lane change plates to give the smoothest lane change and to keep the cars on the track in the event of a 'driver malfunction'! I accept that the plates do need to be perfectly flat and level with the bottom of the wire. I have tried 3d printed templates similar to yours. There is one in my present track but sometimes there is need for adjustment.
Ideally I like to be able to drive round the track with the steering turned the wrong way! Most of my cars will do this.
Again, accuracy and consistency in car build is as essential as accuracy in track and lane change build.