LCS 1.0 - A Slot Car Project

[ER0L]

Hi all,

first off I must say that this is the fulfillment of a dream. From the beginning I was not only interested in building cars but in building cars suitable for minifigs and in finding ways to combine them with a town surrounding. Now what could be nicer than to have even moving vehicles within a town? So many thanks to my dear friend Altezza whose invention of a slot road (when thinking about ways to get his cable car move) made this possible. Many thanks to Nils O for many useful advices, and last not least to Na Dine who provided quite a few parts.

At first sight you might think that this layout doesn’t differ too much from the prototype presented here some months ago. In fact it’s totally different. It is twice as large, much stronger, it works much better, it is 1000 times more reliable, cars are connected to the chain in a much better way, it allows a much higher speed, and last but not least it’s standardized or at least 90 percent standardized until now. That means that it could be copied and would probably work as well. Plus it fits in a town surrounding - which of course must be modified.

When working on this I soon found out that one slot circle - or a block, as we call it - should be kept as a separate and compact element. There’s no use in breaking it up and build it up somewhere else - until the slot (the chain, that is) is running well, the event has passed.

That means that a slot circle must be built as a module that can be kept and transported as a whole. A module made of 4 x 3 baseplates fits in each car and can be carried through most doors, so this seemed to be a suitable measure. When roads are installed the center pit of a module (or a block) has a surface of 3 x 2 baseplates exactly, so that some four or six usual modular buildings will fit in.

Another consequence of this is that each module or block contains only the inner lane of the road. Where two modules meet you have two-way traffic. The outer lane (the great circle, as we call it) that leads around the whole layout has a modular design, too. It doesn’t have a chain, though, which would be much too long.

Now some words on the construction:

The module is built upon a plate which only serves as a means to place and to transport it, it doesn’t provide any stability, baseplates aren’t even fixed. This is required to keep the “100 percent Lego” status.

Another advantage of this is that you can even stack several modules when transported. You only have to detach the buildings (which are transported separately) and pavements which rest within the center pit. Roads stay in their place although they are detachable, too. This is required to keep the chain and drive train accessible.

Here you can see the road profile of such a module. In fact it's just a further stage of the road system already presented here, see http://www.eurobrick...showtopic=83287 The idea was that using baseplates and road plates has quite a few disadvantages when building larger layouts and that the separation of pavements and buildings (which in reality are completely separated, too) allows more flexibility.

Roads and pavements are detachable, buildings are resting on a few pillars. The height of the whole thing is a result of the requirement of installing a monorail underground - once you lift the whole thing, you may use the space underneath for some nice features (there are quite a few ideas ... ). Of course the city will have street lights which can be installed easily (but this would even be possible with the original road system).

And now - the slot cars. There are already quite a few of them - especially the full-size cars like the Impala (which already had a working suspension) have proven to be suitable for that purpose. Real slot cars have a self-steering front axle and a rear suspension which is necessary due to the unevenness of the slot roads.

So what do we have:

• School Bus (motorized freerunner). You may have already see one or two videos with this one. It is meant to be moving on the great circle.
  
• Ecto-1. To be honest the Ecto is not the most suitable slot car until now. A few laps are possible, but due to its weight (there's the battery box) the car breaks down sooner or later. It will be rather used as a special feature.
  
• Chevy Impala Convertible. If everything is fixed properly this car may stay within the slot for an hour or so before anything bad happens.
  
• Checker Taxi Cab. Since this car is built to be used in the slot it is the most stable and reliable car. It will move for hours if required.
  
• Impala Police Interceptor. Same as the Impala Convertible.
  
• Roadster. No real slot car, rather used to compare the different types of vehicles. It doesn't steer and is unsprung, so it doesn't look too good in curves. On the other hand it can go on full speed for several laps due to its lightweight construction. It's quite stable, too.
  
• Vintage Truck. Quite reliable, too, the big wheels don't come off easily.
  
• CHiPs. Can't be called a MOC, just an idea how to involve motorbikes.
  
• 1477. This is rather a personal reminiscence since this car (with the proper dust on it) was - apart from two 2x4 bricks - the only remnant of my Lego collection after my dark ages.
  

​That's why this car is featured in the pre-title sequence of the following video which shows (nearly) all the cars in action:

Many thanks for reading all this stuff, c&c welcome as usual.

Edited February 2, 2014 by ER0L

[TheLazyChicken]

Awesome! I can't wait for more!

[lightningtiger]

Not only great vehicle designs, but AWESOME engineering.......Brick On 'ER0L' !

[ER0L]

Many thanks LazyChicken and LT. Guess this thing will grow further ...

When watching the video once more I recognized that I have forgotten to show that the cars are able to move much faster than before. What you see in the original video is cars moving quite slowly which is required when there is dense traffic in a city. When moving at full speed it looks like this:

Sorry for the poor quality, it seems a better video equipment is required. Too bad the policemen in that car will never catch a traffic offender in front of them ...

[Oran]

Great creations as always my friend!

[ER0L]

Great creations as always my friend!

Thanks Oran, glad you like it!

The subject doesn't seem to be of great interest, perhaps it's more convenient to show it in its designated town surrounding. But this will take some time.

As a foretaste I'd like to add a last video which shows how the different elements interact:

Roads, pavements and buildings aren't connected to each other. That means you can easily lift a road section when there's something wrong with the chain.

To switch to "transport mode" buildings are taken away and stored separately. Pavements (street lights included) are detached and stored in the center pit of the module. Roads stay in place, their surface is the base for another module when stacked (which hasn't been tested yet).

Many thanks all for commenting and viewing. The next photos and videos will hopefully show the growing city.

[UrbanErwin]

I just love this idea. It deserves way more attention.

[pjchilds]

This is amazing stuff. Would love to see more of how the tracked system works, the motors, tracks, connectors etc :) Just all of it please :)

Would some angles on the corners help? (I have no idea, and perhaps you have tried all sorts of things). Something like

angled-slot by pjcinaus, on Flickr

[majorna]

This project is great! I've seen similar ideas used in model railroads, which inspired my Winter Village competition entry (shameless self-link). I love projects that span over different Lego themes and incorporate "Technic" elements in system models. Your vehicles too are wonderful creations in their own right. More details would be very much appreciated!

[elleana]

This is amazing. It reminds me of some of the displays at Legoland with moving vehicles and ships as well.

[ER0L]

I just love this idea. It deserves way more attention.

Thanks UrbanErwin, glad you like it.

This is amazing stuff. Would love to see more of how the tracked system works, the motors, tracks, connectors etc :) Just all of it please :)

Would some angles on the corners help?

Thank you. Some more details see below. Sorry, but I don't quite get the "angle" aspect. What do you think would be the effect of that?

This project is great! I've seen similar ideas used in model railroads, which inspired my Winter Village competition entry (shameless self-link). I love projects that span over different Lego themes and incorporate "Technic" elements in system models. Your vehicles too are wonderful creations in their own right. More details would be very much appreciated!

Yes, I've seen that, very nice! We've experimented with that type of chain, too - didn't work out for a larger layout. But I think the main aspect here is not so much the tracking system but the slot road invented by Altezza which opens new possibilities. Without that all this wouldn't have been possible. Took quite a long time to synchronize the different elements until there was a reliable system though.

This is amazing. It reminds me of some of the displays at Legoland with moving vehicles and ships as well.

Thank you. Well, the Legoland displays are a bit more sophisticated than what we have. On the other hand our system is made of 100% Lego - which is obviously not the case in Legoland ...

Some more details, as requested:

Underside of a slot car (the catch has been improved since):

Snotted road plates:

The school bus is an example of the future so-called freerunners which move on the outer lane (without chain). Such vehicles would even be possible without the whole substructure.

Hope this helps a little.

Edited February 14, 2014 by ER0L

[King Aragorn]

Incredible!

[ER0L]

Incredible!

Many thanks King Aragorn!

I'd like to add another video that gives just an impression of how cars and monorail will interact in the future town. Of course the whole thing will be more sophisticated when finished. As said, there will be a monorail subway, too, but the most exciting thing will be the switch between overhead railway and subway since this is possible with the monorail only. Quite a challenge, I still don't know how this will be done.

Again many thanks all for commenting and viewing. Maybe all this is a little unusual but hopefully it serves as an impact to develop even better systems to change our towns to something more lively.

[LOTRfan]

How do you make the corners? This may seem like a bump, but I'm DYING to know.

[ER0L]

How do you make the corners? This may seem like a bump, but I'm DYING to know.

If you mean the corner of the slot where the cars are turning: you can see that in the photo of the road plates above.

[igacreative]

Good stuff !

[ScotNick]

I've really liked the idea of having a slot car system, and I really admire yours and the cars you have built for it. But I think the curves' radii are too tight, so I've some up with an even more snotted idea

Here the pic of the LDD:

I'll add the lfx, just in case you want to have it.

SnottedCurve.lxf

Edited June 7, 2014 by ScotNick

[ER0L]

I've really liked the idea of having a slot car system, and I really admire yours and the cars you have built for it. But I think the curves' radii are too tight, so I've some up with an even more snotted idea

Thanks a lot, it's nice to see new ideas which can help to improve the LCS. Looks like a lot of thinking that went into this!

This would probably work if you decided to enlarge the slot which is much narrower than in your version. Plus you'd have to omit the possibility to mix motorized and non-motorized vehicles, the motorized vehicles (like the school bus) being able to move straight at a crossing while the non-motorized vehicles (driven by the tread) are turning which will be a future aspect:

In fact the arch is already being used (underneath the surface) to make the bus turn (which otherwise would go straight and fall off the LCS ... ).

Anyhow thanks again, it's highly appreciated. If you or anybody else needs more information about details or measurements in order to improve the system just drop me a line.