@gunrunnerjohn posted:I love it. One question. How well do the card do going down that rather steep grade and coming back up?
GRJ, Jerrman,
The ramp on the layout has a slope of ~0.22, or 12.7 degrees. The kids and I did some experimenting on slope before the build and found that the Nomad (our only car at the time) could handle a max slope of ~0.3 before it struggled noticeably. We used a piece of wood with a homemade wire guide and some Duplo blocks for this project.
The 1:43 Nomad handles the slope on the layout with no issue. I also have a 1:43 Mustang - it is a little more finicky all around & doesn't always like tight (11" diameter) turns, but if the magnet is adjusted/angled correctly it also has no issues on the ramp. (If the magnet creates too much drag it can't "push" it uphill without extra weight over the rear wheels).
It turns out the trickier issue is that when a car pushes over the top of the "hill" to head down, the magnet may momentarily lose the wire and cause the car to wander. I plan to address this by rounding over the curve at the top of the hill slightly, plus adding a supplemental guide wire just below the road paint.
These are my findings after 1 day of building and running, so I may have more to report later re: ramp slope.
