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Making a SLOP track

Emboldened by the initial experiment, I decided to pursue a more complete example. I had read about Single Lane Open Proxy tracks and decided this would be a great testbed.

I use Alibre Design for my CAD work, and I set about modelling a layout that would be interesting. Some eagle eyed readers will figure out what real life track I modeled this after and also immediately spot the mistake I made in the geometry. I printed the layout on 20 some odd sheets of regular paper on my printer, and had to put them together like a puzzle.

Overall sheet size is 27″ x 48″

The tedious bit was going around and cutting the slot out of the pattern, so I could mark it with a permanent marker on the foam.

With everything traced, I removed the pattern, and did my best to freehand the slot with my soldering iron router.

Everything “Routed”
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Initial Testing

To evaluate the slot, I “routed” a simple oval, with a 9″ radius on one end and a 10″ radius on the other. I then painted the slot and area where the car would run with flat latex paint, as is common practice.

Finally, the track was taped with 1/4″ wide copper tape and directly connected the rails to my adjustable power supply. I printed this handy tool from thingiverse, which worked great.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2008389

I grabbed a car and set the power voltage to where the car would just stay in the slot and let it run for several hours at a time, accumulating almost 15 hours of running.

The slot showed no wear, however the motor in the car clearly didn’t like all of the continuous operation.

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Light weight slot car track, proof of concept

Having built a 4×8 “traditional” construction slot car table (which must weigh over 100 pounds), I have decided there must be a better way to go about constructing a track. Some search of the usual forums led to discussions of routing a track in XPS foam. This is the dense pink or blue foam (depending on which hardware store you go to).

I did some experiments with cutting a slot in this material. I tried a few different bits in my rotary tool, and while this worked, the remaining surface wasn’t great. The material wanted to tear and ball instead of cut.

I did some testing with a few different hot wire cutters, and decided the simplest solution was to just put a custom tip in a soldering iron and use that to burn the slot in. The burned in slot has nice smooth surfaces, with a bit of a hard “face” to them.

To make this process manageable, I designed a fixture to hold the iron perpendicular to the track surface. The whole fixture is 3D printed, and in the end looks a lot like a router.

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Alternate Roller for Transformers Optimus Prime

This was a fun and relatively quick project.  This odd incarnation of Roller appears on screen for about 2.5 seconds in an early Transformers G1 episode.  I took a picture of the TV and set about modeling a version of it.

I wanted the wheels to snap on, similar to the way the wheels on the actual toy roller attach.  These parts were all printed on my MakerGear M2 with a few exceptions including the barrels, which are brass rod and tube cut to length and soldered together, the hingepin and springs in the base joint, and the screws.

This model is also available on my Shapeways shop:

https://www.shapeways.com/product/T4BCN3MB2/first-roller-in-transformers-cartoon-series?optionId=58576263

If you order directly from me, you get parts printed on my MakerGear M2, which will be of lower surface finish quality than what you would get from Shapeways.  They come raw from the machine and it is up to you to sand and paint them to finish.   I also include the bits of hardware to complete the model.

If you order from Shapeways, you get the parts in whatever material and finish you order them in and it is up to you to source the remaining bits.

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Hello world!

Hello and thank you for taking a look at this website.  I’ve been quietly working on a variety of projects over the last 10 years, but have never really done much to consolidate information about them or share them.  Some have been documented and discussed on various scattered forums, but over the years I’ve watched some of those disappear.

Most of the projects I will discuss here are 3D printing projects.  The two areas I’ve spent the most time on are various items related to the slot car racing hobby and making custom or replacement parts for old Transformers toys.