I am afraid that there is truth in that. What "we", retro racers, have been trying to do because of the power issues we had before, not counting the power trip on which the former series tyrant was on, is to insulate ourselves from that very mess. What we have now is what Barney Poynor and Yours Truly engineered and paid for out of our own pockets, a suitable power pack delivering 50 amps at the CORRECT voltage to run our frozen-spec motors. All eight cars on track with full spike (at the start of a race or a segment) have always failed to trip the power supply into fail-safe mode, so please don't come and tell me that there is not enough current.
The issues encountered have actually been very minor:
1/ The A-holes that keep screwing with the voltage knob (you know who you are). It is 12.8, no more, no less, LEAVE THE DAMN THING ALONE, thanks.
2/ The location of the pack in a place where it sucks all the raceway's dust, and we learned that the hard way last Saturday.
There were issues a year ago when we installed it: in one race the pack went into "safe mode" (heating up too much) from 12.8 to 8 volts. This lasted a few seconds during a race, then it cooled itself and the power went back up. We then put a fan on front of it and did not have another problem in that event. It showed that it needed a better environment.
Then, some guys tried to run G27 cars without switching the power and I heard it described like the entire world had collapsed. After kindly educating the racers that there is a switch under the track to turn on their favored higher voltage and current, that was the end of that ruckus.
Later, the pack was mounted on a higher base to provide better ventilation, and for an entire year of SCRRA racing, not a SINGLE incident I am aware of.
Then, we had the incident last Saturday, due to the build-up of dust in the venting holes, meaning that the pack did not get its required cooling. It lasted the whole of 15 seconds (and everyone had the same reduction in speed so it is not like it was a catastrophe), and the raceway maintenance gentleman came with an air hose and blew the dust away. There was to my knowledge, no issue after that.
These were the only incidents we had, and it is of course unfortunate that the pack chose that day to act instead of in a monthly race. Please note that this pack has been "on" for over 365 days, day in and day out, without ANY actual failure after it was inspected last year after the first incident when it went in fail-safe mode. I would call that a good proof of reliability.
So before everyone bitches and moans about that power pack, think of it this way:
1/ Our little motors have been in use of nearly 7 years now and are closer in performance than the more expensive and more sophisticated ones used by the "other" series. Not my saying but that of many ("other series") racers on my email all the time. We do not have Hershman Specials here.
2/ They LOVE 12.8 volts, they HATE 13.6 volts and AC leakage. It means that at the recommended voltage, they LIVE longer and lose about 1/10th of a second on a 4.2-second lap. Crying babies speed-crazed morons, go race your Flexis and leave us to race our antiquated machinery, thank you.
3/ The VERY few incidents we had with this pack are a learning experience, and we now know what to do time to time: keep the thing clean and for big events, a small fan could be added for extra insurance.
4/ If you have a better solution, pay for it with your own money and I will be pleased to take this thing back home with me.
Got it?
Thank you.
P, there's not enough amperage.............
. keep it all or buy 1 150amp A/C filtered 13v power so we all can be Very Happy
