My first race of 2021 this Sunday was unexpectedly cut short by a broken controller. I was a little too enthusiastic hitting the straightaway with my ’65 Corvette coupe and nailed the throttle so hard I heard and felt something snap; the car stopped and my controller trigger went limp. Of course these were just the standard Tomy/Russkit controllers-nothing wrong with them but nothing special-and it so happened I had sacrificed my spare many months ago for the connector. Race interrupted due to mechanical failure!
My ignorance is about to show mightily, but that’s part of the reason I’m doing this blog; in hopes of learning from anyone who deigns to interact with me.
So, I figured this was the perfect time to try my custom made Parma controllers!
I bought these a while ago from a guy in the local HO slot car club when he was willing to have a few people over to his house in spite of the pandemic to race on his basement track (he seems to have since changed his mind about that). I love the feel of them; they have great trigger control and have a heft and a texture that makes them feel like a high quality product. As I said, I had already taken the wire from my spare stock controller for the connector; I had I soldered the clipped ends of the wires to give the alligator clips on the end of the Parma leads something to grab onto, so I cut the wire off the controller I had just broken and did the same; once I had both Parmas wired up, I turned the track back on and…watched both my cars fly across the room.
That wasn’t good.
So as I said, I bought these from a guy in the HO slot club who is a seriously competitive racer who runs BSRT and Wizzard-lexan bodied slot cars on a wooden track, and like so many of the seriously competitive guys he was not a fan of trac-mag racing. Even so, he was an old timer who grew up in the Thunderjet era and knew them well. He suggested that because I was using the AW T-jets with the traction magnets, a 45-ohm controller might be about right to give my cars an extra boost. Made sense to me!
It seemed like a good idea at the time; unfortunately, it looks to have been a miscalculation. With the exception of my very slowest cars-the ones that are “showboats” and completely non-competitive-the 45 ohm resistor was too much (er, I mean, too little); the cars simply moved too fast, and letting off the trigger even almost all the way didn’t get me through a turn; I had to let off completely and do a full stop just to get a lap without a deslot…which is obviously no fun.
Well…bummer. Now what?
The answer, I thought, was to grab my third set a controllers: the new AFX 120-ohm models. I had bought a pair a while ago because I wanted longer cords but had frankly never bothered to even use them. I plugged them in and thought I’d go to town, but was in for yet another disappointment!
Its hard to believe these controllers were made by the same company that made the earlier ones I was using; they are, in a word, CRAP. They are extremely poorly made, of cheap material, and the feel of the trigger and the smoothless of the rheostat is a joke; at any given trigger position I have too much power or too little, there’s nothing until the trigger is almost ¾ of the way squeezed giving me only a small amount of travel for all the power, the triggers often stick with the throttle open… The things are so bad I again found I couldn’t finish a tournament, as I lacked the control I needed to race. Did I just get an exceptionally bad set? Maybe, but the feel of the whole piece is desperately cheap, so maybe they’re all this bad; I have no idea, but if I’m right, shame on AFX for putting their name on this garbage.
What a disappointment! So…now what do I do?
Well honestly I didn’t know, so I decided to do 2 things: first, I bought another pair of the Tomy/Russkit controllers of the type I had; lightly used and cleaned/tested by the vendor, standard style and cord length, and they should hopefully be here in a week. Good enough. But I was also looking for something else. First I’d thought I’d buy another set of Parma controllers, and there’s plenty to choose from, but as soon as I started looking it dawned on me that I don’t know what I’m looking for!
So let me ask y’all: on a roughly 45’ 2 lane track with a standard 22V power pack, what resistance IS right for Ultra-G T-Jets??? Anyone have any ideas? 120-ohm seems to be just barely enough, so I want just a little more power, but obviously not too much more!
I’ve already done a post about the Turbo Boost terminal on my Tyco track and asked if anyone out there knows of a similar product for AFX; this episode with the Parma controllers is a perfect example of where that could come in handy. I’ve looked many times and found nothing like it, but I did find something that interested me even though I didn’t really understand it.
From what I gather, these controllers were made for the Japanese market and were not sold in the US. I found a set (although the handles are red rather than white) for sale today on ebay; they were marketed as “unused/new-in-package” and seemed to be a very good price, so I took the risk and bought them. They are on the way.
As much info as I’ve been able to find about these, the “thumbwheel” or dial on the side of the controller is a second rheostat that functions in a way similar to my Tyco Turbo Boost terminal. In fact, some of the marketing material I’ve seen for these specifically refers to it as “turbo boost.” I may be wrong about this, however; I’m not sure if this is an adjustment you can set and leave, or if its used like trigger that can only boost the power for an instant. The price I paid was low enough that I feel comfortable finding out, but if anyone out there can tell me about their experiences with these that would be awesome. If only I had a way to get them NOW! It’s Sunday night and I’m jonesing for a race!
One thought on “Controller Confusion”