2011, pinewood derby cars (TRON)

[sporty]

A few more 2011 cars.

masters car, a special thanks goes out to Firenze, He cut the shape 4 me.



Some speed demons- Is it thin to win ?



different silver car-








not finished yet-



Uh-OH, is sporty showing his weight placement for extended wheel base ! I have before

Brief recap of the past winners, Here is 2010 (Dalton's)
, council winner


2nd place council car, 2010- Seans.


Dalton's 2009 car had a tamper issue, only made it to the semi finals.-


Seans 2009 council winner-



Daltons 2008 2nd place council-



Seans 2008 council winner-



Brandons car 3rd place council 2007-





Sporty

[dna1990]

Killer, as usual Sporty. The SBD Masters is a sweet cut.

For the diffusing the LEDs, I have had luck with plain polycarb/plexiglass and using a random orbit sander on it with 220 grit paper. Now this was for a larger display than the scale you are working on, but simple to try at least.

[BGRacing]

Sporty,
Nice job - we used a little different method for our Tron car.

Check it out.....

[Darin McGrew]

What are the lights you used? They look like neon lights, but they must be awfully thin, maybe 1/16" or so?

[sporty]

Darin,


it looks like that is el wire with a inverter you can buy. I think thats 1.2 mm el wire.


P.S., car looks nice, how did it run ?


Sporty

[Darin McGrew]

Thanks, Sporty. I hadn't seen such stuff before. Very interesting...

[sporty]

no problem, we have been using el wire since star wars, phantom menace came out, I use to make el wire, light sabers for the kits. I used lexon polycarbonate and polyethelene as the defuser and used 5 to 7 strandes of el wire inside of that, then had a hilt machined at a local machine ship, inserted the inverter into the hilt and batteries and switches.

kids still use them and have wacked them hard and not broke one yet, just loosened wires up inside of them.

Sporty

[sporty]

Here this is off topic, But it's okay, since I started the topic.


here is a few pictures of lightsabers that I made for the kids back in 2005/2006. I made red ones, blue, green,yellow, we had like 6 of these at one time.


Now the rage is better hilts and 5 watt luxeon leds.


never got to making them.

[pwrd by tungsten]

Very Cool!!!!

May the force be with you!!!!

[68sportcoupe]

is it my imagination or is the car on the scales an 2 wheeler

[sporty]

no two wheeler on the scales. Also fyi, dont look for the car on the scales to reveal anything. I just sat it on there one time for the pic, not placed trued or squared, ect. byt 4 wheel car.

[BGRacing]

Darin,

To answer your question - It is a piece of "EL" wire. (various sizes and colors are available on the internet)

The bottom is routed out to create a battery box - it is powered by a single "AA" battery. The weight placement went perfect - it won the pack race and best in show. Now on to district.

The biggest challenge was weaving one piece of wire around the car to use up enough wire so the inverter would be able to run it. We made a clear bottom plate to cover the battery and allow the extra wire to shine through to create the glow under the car.

[sporty]

Darin,

To answer your question - It is a piece of "EL" wire. (various sizes and colors are available on the internet)

The bottom is routed out to create a battery box - it is powered by a single "AA" battery. The weight placement went perfect - it won the pack race and best in show. Now on to district.

The biggest challenge was weaving one piece of wire around the car to use up enough wire so the inverter would be able to run it. We made a clear bottom plate to cover the battery and allow the extra wire to shine through to create the glow under the car.

If I had known, I could have shared how to shorten or use less.

The hardest thing, is there 1 or two little wires, they break easy, very easy. then you scrape off the coating on the thicker wire, solder both and make sure you use glue or heat shrink tubing for that super small wire and you are good to go.

Well it still turned out very good, even with having wrap issues. But this stuff is fun to play with though.

Did you have a balsa body ? you said you guys got 1st for speed, any pictures of what you raced ?

Was really hard for me to get the tron car to win 1st for speed in adult class. re-built it 3 times, to get it as fast I could. and that was with a lower profile.

Its great we got 1st and best of show in the adult class with the tron car and you guys did, thats just exciting. andw e got lucky.

Sporty

[BGRacing]

Sporty,

We added balsa wood to the sides to create the wheel wells - but its a BSA block using the axle grooves. Alot of time was spent adjusting the weight to compensate for the battery / inverter. Believe it or not there is quite a weight difference in Alkaline vs. Lithium AA batteries. Needless to say the dremel and router bit got a workout.

We do not have the times -yet. I will ask for them. We ran on an old wooden 6 lane track - I would need the track details to to get some sort of idea how fast it actually is.

The "EL" light is really cool - I thought about sewing a stripe in my sons old uniform - so while his car ran he could match - but the wife thought that was a bit much.

[sporty]

I forgot to update this , put The tron car took first place and fastest in speeed for adult class.

I had to build like 6 of these, to get it figured out for going pretty fast.

In fact, I kept this a secret, But I got the tron led cars to go faster than my sons pack car, first place and fastest in the pack. and as of a few weeks ago, the webelo 1, council winner.

The tron led cars were faster.

and my son ran a non led tron car.