Hello Gentlemen Racers and fellow ‘Slot Addictos’:
Art’s summary and Ken’s reply sound very good, and workable. (F1NUTS: the car and driver look great!)
Just for interest, if anyone is curious as to why I prefer to avoid inline transmissions, I have devised a test you can do at home to make your own observations. My hypothesis is that during increase in the motor RPM there will be an observable reaction (other than acceleration) onto the chassis as a whole, that will not be conducive to the car’s performance.
Along with other limitations, there is an inherent inescapable deficiency in the dynamics of the inline system. I can show you all of the torque, angular momentum, and force-couple equations, but we may just get bogged down in equations and loose the physics behind them; it would be much more convincing for you to see the effect for yourself.
Take an inline-drive car and remove the body. Attach a long flexible thin conductor (such as a lead wire) to each of your guide brushes (either by tape, or looped under the brush, or connected to the brush to motor-wire junction). Loop a long thin string to the front of the chassis around the hole for the guide. Connect the other ends of your flexible wires to your power supply set at about 9 V. Hold up the string and flexible wires so that the chassis hangs freely in the vertical plane. Switch on your power supply, and observe what happens as the power surges, (as it would when you quickly press the controller trigger).
I’ve tried this just now with a 32’nd scale car. The result is evident and does have an effect on the dynamics of the chassis. (The effect may be subtle – but still present, if you are using a motor with a light armature, small armature radius, or slow rotation [The first two factors would contribute to a low moment of inertia. The three factors together would now contribute to a low angular momentum.] .) But I should note that, because of the lighter armatures in 32’nd scale, this may have no net effect on the overall performance of the car (in this scale). However, my participation in the hobby has never been about lap times, or about beating out the other guys; I just want to build the best chassis possible with my limited abilities, so it’s more of a theoretical consideration for me.
If you give it a try, let me know what you observe, and we can do the follow-up analysis.
Felix.
I used to be one of the sharpest tools in the shed; now I’m just a slot-head !
There is nothing quite as practical as, the right theory !