Category: Stewart Raceway III

All about Stewart Raceway

SR3 Construction Update – February 16, 2022

Finally able to get back to work on the new track this week. Not a lot of progress but I was able to wire up one driver’s station and test the individual lane voltage control hardware.

Yep, SR3 will support testing pretty much any type of car simultaneously. In the past, most tracks have one or two power supplies and everybody had to test/practice at the same voltage. SR3 was designed to allow any lane to operate at whatever voltage the driver desires.

The initial hardware will support two preset voltage selections and a variable voltage setting. The track will be fed by two 30VDC, 10-amp, regulated power supplies: one for lanes 1, 2, and 3; the other on the opposite side of the track supplying power to lanes 4, 5, and 6.

The key technology that allows the driver to select lane voltage at the driver’s station is programmable DC Voltage Converters at each driver’s station. A small console just below the driver’s station allows the driver to set or adjust the voltage to whatever car or power level they want to test or practice at.

I’ve always hated the fact that we could always only test/practice at a given voltage level, which severely limited track time and testing. This system should alleviate that problem and provide much more flexibility to drivers during practice and testing sessions.

Of course, the race computer can set and lock these devices to a common voltage for racing purposes. But when the track is open for testing or practice, drivers can run any type of car, at any voltage, from 5v to 28v.

That’s the plan anyway. Today, I tested the wiring and hardware on one lane and it worked flawlessly. The next test is with all six driver’s stations–at the same time. Then, of course, it’ll all have to be tested in real race conditions using the track computer to control all stations.

It’s coming along nicely but still a lot of painstaking labor and technical hurdles to overcome.

Okay, shut up and drive!

SR3 Update: Elevations and Banking Set

Yep, the initial setup is done. Of course, all adjustable at any time but this is what we’ll open SR3 with. Pictures don’t really do it justice. You can see it in person at Round 3 of the 2022 Formula “e” Series, January 29.

Right-click and open in a new browser tab for full-size images. The entrance to Turn 1 (oval).

 

The road course.
Down-slope, off-camber exit from Turn 4. No slam-dunk getting to the finish line here.

Lower banking on entrance to Turn 1 (oval) and higher banking on Turn 2 exit. A little bump in the middle of the corner to make things more interesting for all types of cars.

No idea how this setup will work with the various cars we run, we’ll sort it out.

Plenty of work left to do, including completely securing each track piece to the table. This becomes more important in the summer season when the heat tends to expand the Sintra roadway material. I’ll likely end up securing each piece every 8″ or so.

Once I get all the pieces secured, it’s time to get going on the wiring, which is always a challenge when you use multiple RMS (timing system) setups. While I was leaning towards abandoning SlotTrak due to their recent crazy mandatory hardware upgrade, I decided to invest in that hardware upgrade for SR3 to try it out.

SR3 also has some new features that require a completely different track wiring design. I won’t go into the details here but the plan is to be able to change the voltage for each lane at the driver’s station (and computer). This supports drivers to test different cars at whatever voltage they like while also permitting the Race Director to reset the lane voltages at race time. It’s complicated but the hope is that it benefits driver/team track time by allowing practice sessions of virtually any type of car on the track at the same time. Yea, a bit sketchy but much more productive track/testing days.

Don’t forget! Round 3 of the Formula “e” Series is Saturday, January 29, 2022. Get registered now!

Okay, shut up and drive!

 

SR3 Construction Update

Mostly doing research on power solutions and waiting on materials needed for the track elevations and banking. Not sure if you’ve noticed lately but FedEx and UPS really suck when you compare them to Amazon and USPS.

I try not to buy CCP products as much as possible but sadly there are simply too many things that are simply not made anywhere else these

days. That’s another subject entirely of course. But even products that are already in the States seem to take forever when shipped by the major players. And, no, it’s not related to the “supply-chain” hoax. In fact, these days you can expect at least three days where the item(s) just sit in some shipping hub location for a long, long time.

Anyway, waiting on spacers  (standoffs), wire, wire sheathing, power components, and other items right now. The track is pretty much secure to the table just need to set the banking and overpass elevations but need the proper spacers and screws to do that. These pictures show the proposed overpass height and shape. I think it’ll be challenging for both L4 magnet cars and our other less stuck platforms.

The banking elevations and shapes will be different on each of the four corners. I’ll decide on that once I get the needed materials and start to shape the oval corners. The banking will likely be less than SR2’s banks but fairly close at the highest points. Of course, I’ll do my best to make each corner as different and challenging as possible.

Once I get this stage completed, it’ll be time to secure each track piece completely to the table and then start the basic track and power tap wiring. I’m planning a “Phase 1” power solution for the track opening, which will be at least the same power control setup we have on the SR2 VSR track.  Phase 2 will be driver-selectable voltage levels for each lane, from 3v to ~28v, which will also be programmable from the track computer by the race director.

Two purposes for these features: one is so that we can test/practice different types of cars in the same practice/test session and not have to switch voltage levels; the second purpose is so the race director can reset each lane’s voltage to the proper levels prior to each race.

Don’t forget to register for Round 2 of the Formula “E” Series this coming Saturday, January 15, 2022!

Also, if you know somebody who you think would enjoy racing little cars with us, please invite them along. We always need new drivers to join the group and it’ll benefit all of us when we have a large enough “club” to always have more than enough racers to support our events.

Remember: SR3 is six-lanes! That means we’ll need at least eight (8) participants to have any hope of full utility of the track and enough turn marshals.  Yea, we can run just four lanes, but that’s not cool!

Okay, shut up and drive!

With All The Recent Rainfall, SR3 Is Moving Right Along

With plenty of other tasks to do the rains have been keeping me indoors. When that happens, I usually play with slot car stuff or hack on computer stuff.  This week has been all SR3 construction.

With the table completed, I started laying down the track and completed the oval course placement. Once you get that set, you can go ahead and lay down the road course pieces. While I didn’t achieve perfection with the oval pieces fitting together perfectly, it was good enough. So I decided to keep going and get the road course pieces fastened to the table.

It’s quite an interesting operation if you’ve not done it

before. Brad Bowman’s tracks are tongue and groove, which is really cool. However, you still have to fit the pieces together very precisely. Like a plastic sectional track, you don’t fasten any pieces until you’ve put it all together and made sure everything lines up–end-to-end.

In the case of a convertible oval-to-road course track, you have to get the oval layout dialed first. Then you have a fixed starting point for the rest of the puzzle. I didn’t get the oval to align together perfectly but it was extremely close and I didn’t have time to start over and get it perfect. These shots show the track in various stages of placement completion and the complete placement of the entire course.

The next steps are to set the banking angles of the oval and elevate the overpass section. I may also elevate or bank other sections of the road course as I evaluate the course complexity and funness.

Houston, We Have Liftoff!

Right-click any image to open full size.

Woohoo! SR3 lifted off from the construction pad today at 4:26PM, Tuesday, December 28, 2021.  The launch was flawless and SR3 remained lifted for over an hour without issue.

I really wasn’t sure the system would lift this beast of a table but it seemed to be plenty powerful enough and didn’t seem to bog down with the new load at all. Of course, there’s a lot more to add to the table, including the track, wiring, electronics, and power supplies. Given there didn’t appear to be any stress on the system the only modifications I’ll add are extra horizontal and vertical bracing to the garage joists and some sort of safety straps to prevent a pulley mount from failing. Yea, I didn’t do that with SR2 but this beast makes me nervous to get under for any length of time.

Next step after the safety system is to clean up the table and touch up the paint job. Then it’s time to lay down the precious Bowman track sections, oval layout first.

Hope to see you at the  Formula “e” Series Opener January 1, 2022. Please register for the event today!

Okay, shut-up and drive!