MAGracing Forum

Hi all.

Have any of you given any thoughts to how to implement BLST with Magracing ?

I like the idea of the racing line being the default line and then you have to race against it to win / pass contenders.

I'm considering give it some thoughts and see it it could be a nice variant. Maybe ditching my BRW1 and do BRW3-BLST on the whole backside of my BRW2.

Hi Kim,

Sorry I have to ask what BLST means, I'll hopefully know when I read it, but I'm just drawing a blank.

Thanks

Brian

Here is the link to the system

http://www.blst-circuits.co.uk/

Its basically a slotted track, where all cars follow the racing line and only when you tell the car to veer off does the car take an alternate route.

In Magracing there is no active track or "points" so this is more difficult to implement. We would just have to come up with a lane change design, where the cars always took the "Alternative route" unless there was input from the hand controller and in this case the car would go straight.

blst, i did try something like that 10 years ago at the nürnberg toy messe, worked that way that when 2 cars was next to each other they both stay ind the lane so no collision was forced.

Doing this on a magrace track is possible, i can plan my way out of it and force the car to follow the racing line, but then we have the problem. If one car 'just' follow a racing line the collision will happen when another car try to overtake and the cars is still next to each other at the next corner, NOT good.

so there should be more technics steering the cars.

HeliumFrog wrote: Its basically a ... track, where all cars follow the racing line and only when you tell the car to veer off does the car take an alternate route.

In Magracing there is no active track or "points" so this is more difficult to implement. We would just have to come up with a lane change design, where the cars always took the "Alternative route" unless there was input from the hand controller and in this case the car would go straight.

Here’s an idea for a lane change switch that would cause the car to normally take the racing line without any steering input, but would permit the car to go straight when desired. It’s based on the notion that a car will go around a curve as long as the centrifugal force does not exceed the force between the guide wire and the guide magnet as well as the force of friction between the tires and pavement. When the centrifugal force is too great due to excessive speed, the car flies off the wire at a tangent.

The Details:
Install a continuous piece of guide wire with no gap from the main line into the racing line. About .85” beyond the point where the curve of the racing line begins, install another guide wire of the same diameter going straight ahead. See diagram below.



The wire diameter is .030”. The curve of the racing line begins at point A. The additional straight ahead wire begins at point B. If the car is going fast enough, momentum will carry it, from right to left, straight beyond point B. If not going quite fast enough, I would expect right turn input to cause the car to go straight. At an appropriate speed, the car should follow the racing line around the 12” radius curve. A very small gap may be needed between the wires at point B. This could be created by increasing the dimension of .085” perhaps to 1.00”. In other words, moving point B to the left .15”.)This would create a gap of about .01” (.25mm) between the 2 guide wires at point B, assuming a 12” radius curve. Some experimentation would be required to determine the size of the gap needed.

This design does not require any lane change plate. But of course, the default is going around the curve, not going straight ahead. With this kind of lane change design, the driver would need very little skill to take the racing line. It’s not clear to me that racing on this type of track would be more fun.

My idea with using some 'BLST' thoughts with Magracing would be to make easier for novices to compete. Still I was not thinking of implementing any hardware lane changes, just designing the lanes so it would make for LC when needed. It would take some careful planing to manage for sure.
To make any automatic 'right to lane' would be hard. So just relaying on gentlemen's racing would be needed.

Hi Kim,

I just made a portion of my first track and used the idea of having a default racing line, as well as three default lanes. With the track being three lanes wide, there was really no way of laying out the wire so that there would not be lines either converging or crossing over, so my feeling was if you are in a default line or on the racing line and you're approaching a corner, whoever is on the inside line going into that corner has the right of way and if someone challenges that and does not give that right of way, they are going to get bumped into another lane or right off the track. I figured it was kind of the same thing that happens in real racing. I'm going to try it for my first track and see what happens. I will try and get some pictures of how I laid everything out.

Brian