By Michael Ashton
My 1/32nd scale home track is Ninco N-Digital. It allows me to run a wide variety of slot cars from various manufacturers. This includes a number of Carrera cars. Recently several of my older Carrera GT's began running poorly on the N-Digital track. They seemed to be running erratically. They were not smooth in the straights, balked when crossing a dead strip, were 'jerky' when accelerating and would occasionally zoom to full throttle when braking into a corner.
I tried a number of things without any improvement. This included thoroughly cleaning the track rails and treating with INOX, checking voltage level all around the track and installing a fresh set of pickup braids in each car. Finally, I removed the braids, intending to check connectivity at all points from the guide to the motor when my attention was immediately drawn to the small rail that makes contact between the guide and braid assemblies (see below).
It appeared to be tarnished and/or oxidized when compared to the shiny brass of the new braid assembly that was just installed. So, I took a small flathead screwdriver and burnished the exposed surface and the surfaces that are recessed into the rectangular openings of the guide plate.
I then took the previous braid assemblies that had been removed and performed the same operation on their contact surfaces and reinstalled them in the guide.
I returned the car to the N-Digital track and the performance increase was immediate and noticeable. The car ran much smoother around the track and did not hesitate at the dead strips. All the previous problems were either gone or significantly reduced.
This does not appear to be an issue when running analog and it's possible that it only affects Carrera cars running on N-Digital. Now this may be common knowledge to Carrera users, however, it was a significant discovery for me. Regardless, it could also be a problem on Carrera's Digital 132 system because, as with N-Digital, the Carrera system transmits its data through the rails.
Anyway, it's something to think about if you ever have subtle performance problems with a Carrera Digital 132 car.
_Michael Ashton
