69 replies to this topic

[Tom Thumb Hobbies]

The thing that sets Difalco controllers apart is Mr. Jim himself. When was the last time someone in this industry asked for his customers comments like this? Zero!
 
For almost 60 years of operating my raceway I sold a huge amount of his controllers. I would bet that every last one of them is still working as designed. On the rare occasion that repair is needed, it is a very quick and easy fix.

I was fortunate enough to have his original rental controller system that I installed on my King. Absolutely perfect. They were so smooth that we occasionally had national level racers ask to use one during an event when that couldn’t get their own controller dialed-in like they wanted.

Since closing my shop I’ve been busy promoting HO racing in my new area. I have put a Difalco controller into dozens of hands of people who hadn’t heard of slot racing before and every single one has commented on the obvious quality and how they seemed to have been made to fit their hands perfectly. Most of them now own their own controller now.

Unfortunately, I’m being forced to slow down my efforts currently until I can get a “tune-up” on a couple knees. Who knew you could wait too long? But one thing is certain. Difalco will be the controller of choice.

What needs changed?? Nothing!

[Wizard Of Iz]

Rollin, believe it or not my standard curved trigger has exactly the same curve as the Red Fox trigger! I thought the Red Fox was close to what I wanted as well. My curve starts at a slightly different place, in relation to the trigger pivot, than the Red Fox so it may feel slightly different.

 

Unfortunately the Red Fox bearing hole is too large for ball bearings to press in place like I like them. The Red Fox also has fiberglass in them so I am surprised one snapped.

 

You should have seen how hard Johnny squeezed the trigger.  

 

Jason, I think JK changed the trigger "angle" as you put it about five-six years ago? The 3rd Eye controller with the JK trigger was uncomfortable to me because the trigger sunk into the handle so far the back your finger hit the handle on the side of the trigger. It also has a lot to do with the location of the trigger pivot and the brake and power contacts as well. The farther the wiper bands are pushed forward the more the trigger has to sink into the handle to reach the full power contact. My controllers have a more neutral position, not too far forward or back.

 

You did hit on one change I will be making to my curved trigger. The face of my curved trigger will now have a slight radius to it from side to side as well as keeping the lengthwise curve. Right now the trigger has a flat face with a bit of a radius on the edges. The face will now get a full radius that will transition into more curved edges. Hopefully this will be perfect for you.

 

I'm looking forward to your new curved trigger. I think it's the radius of the face on the Red Fox that creates the feel that I prefer.

 

 

Rental house controllers for races, I did not know a track was doing this. What raceway? The rentals have been incredibly reliable. I probably have sold 15 repair transistors for the three years they have been in service. The extra power fuse added has stopped any damage to wiring from wrong hook-ups.

 

I'm pretty sure Bill Pinch at The Raceway in Cleveland, TN, uses your rental controllers as 'house' controllers.

 

The Difalco controllers that we had at our track in Jacksonville (2010-15) were so popular with customers that we had people wanting to buy them.  

[rmjlmartin]

You did hit on one change I will be making to my curved trigger. The face of my curved trigger will now have a slight radius to it from side to side as well as keeping the lengthwise curve. Right now the trigger has a flat face with a bit of a radius on the edges. The face will now get a full radius that will transition into more curved edges. Hopefully this will be perfect for you.

Sounds good, I'm looking forward to trying it when it becomes available. Will you be offering a rounded face version of the flat trigger, too? My reshaped curved trigger ended up with more curve than I liked, and felt like it had too much of a 'hook' at the end. I'm currently using the original flat trigger that came on the controller, but I've rounded it off a bit and carved a slight curve into it, too. I think that's worked the best for me so far, though I do have an older controller with an old Parma trigger that's rounded a little and probably worn from years of someone's use before I got it, and it feels very nice, too.

[mppicione]

Marc, what trigger options are you wanting?
 
I have the traditional straight Parma type and two-finger triggers already.

 
I'm sorry, I guess you already have options I did not know about.
 
As for drivers who use their thumbs, that would be a question for racers like Al Rutti or Bud Bartos (not that they need to be any faster LOL!). The new handles are just fine IMO.

[Jim Difalco]

The thing that sets Difalco controllers apart is Mr. Jim himself. When was the last time someone in this industry asked for his customers comments like this? Zero!
 
For almost 60 years of operating my raceway I sold a huge amount of his controllers. I would bet that every last one of them is still working as designed. On the rare occasion that repair is needed, it is a very quick and easy fix.

I was fortunate enough to have his original rental controller system that I installed on my King. Absolutely perfect. They were so smooth that we occasionally had national level racers ask to use one during an event when that couldn’t get their own controller dialed-in like they wanted.

Since closing my shop I’ve been busy promoting HO racing in my new area. I have put a Difalco controller into dozens of hands of people who hadn’t heard of slot racing before and every single one has commented on the obvious quality and how they seemed to have been made to fit their hands perfectly. Most of them now own their own controller now.

Unfortunately, I’m being forced to slow down my efforts currently until I can get a “tune-up” on a couple knees. Who knew you could wait too long? But one thing is certain. Difalco will be the controller of choice.

What needs changed?? Nothing!

 

Mike might have been the only raceway owner to take advantage of the feature, in my original rental controller system, by mounting the heatsink under the track. The transistor signal needed another connector added to the track panel for this remote heatsink system to function. So each rental controller had the three standard alligator clips plus a fourth connector for it to work. Not sure what Mike used for the transistor signal connector.

 

Unfortunately, this design did not take off as it was mostly a conversion kit to be installed on raceways' existing Turbo controllers to keep the cost low. The installation skill needed plus the idea of needing a fourth connector did not entice raceway owners to invest in it.

[Tom Thumb Hobbies]

Since my track was an original AMCR King, I used the plug intended for a phone jack as the fourth wire. Not that it would have been hard to just add a fourth post. The genius of the system was all the electronics were safely mounted under the track. It was almost impossible to do damage to a controller even with fiur-year old birthday party kids.

From a business POV the system paid for itself in about four months with zero maintenance from me. That’s almost like printing money. Those raceways who didn’t try it really missed out.

[Sloter]

I would like to see a cover for the exposed electronics board. Never had an issue, but always very couscous how I hang it or lay it down.

 

Your controllers rock!

 

Bob

[Samiam]

What he said.

[Jim Difalco]

Personally I am not a big fan of cous cous! or couscous. I prefer rice.

[Noose]

I would like to see a cover for the exposed electronics board. Never had an issue, but always very couscous how I hang it or lay it down.

 

Check with Mike Swiss.

[Jim Difalco]

Noose, what does this mean?

[Eddie Fleming]

I think Noose was saying Swiss may have covers for the exposed board.

[Sloter]

Personally I am not a big fan of cous cous! or couscous. I prefer rice.

 

Spell check gets me every time! LOL.

 

Bob

[Jim Difalco]

Sorry, Bob, but it was too good to pass up.

[Mad Mark]

Maybe something like easily changeable triggers. Have trigger nub that you can easily screw different-shaped triggers to without disassembly. two-finger, left/right, colors, different textures.

 

Maybe have a similar setup for the handle to easily screw on different grips without having to change the whole controller body.

[Jim Difalco]

Mark, I like the different grips idea and it shows some out of the box thinking. How many racers out there use that ET Grips foam cover for the lower handle? I actually hate these as they discourage cleaning of the controller contacts as it is extremely difficult to remove. I have already thought about a rubberized grip like you find on drill/drivers etc. But would obscure the handle color, etc.
 
The changeable trigger idea was considered four years ago but it was late November and I did not have a viable design to make it happen in time to have it ready to sell quickly so the idea was shelved at that time. Now, maybe yes, maybe no.

[Sloter]

Sorry, Bob, but it was too good to pass up.

 

No problem. I can laugh at myself and I do that a lot.

 

Bob

[BrettC]

Maybe something like easily changeable triggers. Have trigger nub that you can easily screw different-shaped triggers to without disassembly. two-finger, left/right, colors, different textures.
 
Maybe have a similar setup for the handle to easily screw on different grips without having to change the whole controller body.

TruSpeed has had this for years, which I like, but his trigger pivot isn't great.

[Eddie Fleming]

It seems to me that easily changeable triggers would be a potential failure point.

 

Having not seen a finished product who knows, but I am skeptical. 

[team burrito]

I have already thought about a rubberized grip like you find on drill/drivers etc. But would obscure the handle color, etc.

i've use a bicycle inner tube as a rubber grip & it works great. the trick is to unsoldering the wires to slip on the grip.

[Jim Difalco]

It seems to me that easily changeable triggers would be a potential failure point.

 

Having not seen a finished product who knows, but I am skeptical. 

 

I am familiar with the TruSpeed trigger. The curved surface slips into grooves on the base part of the trigger and is held in by a pin. A pretty decent design.

[dalek]

Dale, you really love this idea, don't you? Unfortunately, I do not. The second that a racer needs a brake level setting that is between two numbers they will be disappointed with the feature. Turning a 100-band economy pot or a 40-band pro brake into a 12 or 15 position rotary switch just does not work for me.

 
I agree that 15 positions, from 0 to 10, wouldn't be enough.
 
I have a Third Eye Hitman with a Loknob installed on the sensitivity pot. There are 23 positions when turning the knob from 0 to 10. Approximately, that results in one stop every whole number on the dial and a stop between each. I've never experienced a situation where I wished I could set the sensitivity between any two stops.
 
That being said, if I were designing a click-stop knob from scratch, I might make it with 34 positions from 0 to 10.  That would result in having a stop at each whole number and two stops inbetween.
 
I wonder if click-stop knobs and the corresponding toothed rings could be made inexpensively by using a 3D printer.

[studentdriver]

Jim,

 

#3 below has peeked my interest. I'm fine with color, handles, triggers and all the basic stuff, but I'm always interested on changes to the functionality of the controller, like what you mentioned with adding a pot. That said, can you explain (like I'm a 5 year old) on what exactly the current TC knob does versus what you plan on adding? I believe you're current traction control acts like a choke but has full throttle bypass built in and you can't shut it off.

 

here are some of my own thoughts.. have all the dials/pots have more impact. Right now when I adjust I can notice a change but perhaps not drastic enough. As not to mess people up maybe make it the 282 or something.. "more impactful pot control"

 

thanks,
Mike

 

 

 

 

 

David,

 

#1) left or right hand handles? I guess you are pulling my leg?

 

#2) I have not had any feedback on brushless motors damaging the economy brake rheostat. I am not saying it is not an issue but it is hard to think that a short burst of braking amperage, which should be quite low, would damage a 5 watt rheostat.

 

#3) Traction control is extremely popular and I will instead add another pot to handle the choke level.

[Geezer in Training]

I used to build my own controllers back in the 1980's and 1990's and one thing I would have liked to change is the progressive nature of hand control spring rates.  I thought about this doing some hand control maintenance of my controllers recently.  I was dissatisfied with the soft tension the controller has at the rest position versus the greater tension from the midpoint to full punch.  To get the optimum midpoint to punch tension the tension at rest is soft enough to make the controller arm feel too soft.

I had played with the idea of a pulley system built into the handle but during the old days the space in the grip section of the handle was too cramp with the old parma frame or even a hand built frame.  I even thought a torsion spring would work but never bothered to source them.

Just a very small pet peeve.  Some better design of the power sweep arm might also alleviate this.  

The end goal is a completely linear rate from rest to full punch.

[Jim Difalco]

I used to build my own controllers back in the 1980's and 1990's and one thing I would have liked to change is the progressive nature of hand control spring rates.  I thought about this doing some hand control maintenance of my controllers recently.  I was dissatisfied with the soft tension the controller has at the rest position versus the greater tension from the midpoint to full punch.  To get the optimum midpoint to punch tension the tension at rest is soft enough to make the controller arm feel too soft.

I had played with the idea of a pulley system built into the handle but during the old days the space in the grip section of the handle was too cramp with the old parma frame or even a hand built frame.  I even thought a torsion spring would work but never bothered to source them.

Just a very small pet peeve.  Some better design of the power sweep arm might also alleviate this.  

The end goal is a completely linear rate from rest to full punch.

Scott, the position of the spring post may help with your quest. My old controllers had 2 post locations, one about perpendicular with the trigger when at rest and the other one much lower pulling more straight down towards the bottom of the handle when the trigger was at rest. As you pulled the trigger the lower spring post position would have the spring extend less than the direct position when nearer full power.

 

Spring rates are linear but I think you are talking about having the same tension on the trigger at brake as you are at full trigger position? Not easy to do with a simple extension spring.