LumiRace Slotcar Lighting Controller
(2023 - In Progress) | 410 words (1 mins)
Slot cars bodies have become highly detailed and realistic, but most drivers miss out on a key detail - lights. LumiRace is an advanced lighting controller for slot cars that features realistic brake lights, adjustable headlights, and hazard lights that automatically activate after a crash.
LumiRace is designed for maximum realism and immersion. Other lighting kits only glow passively or worse, turn off when the car stops. LumiRace reacts intelligently and realistically, illuminating tail lights specifically when the car is decelerating or stationary, just like a real vehicle.
LumiRace activates the tail lights during deceleration.
LumiRace uses special sensing technology to detect when the car de-slots, and will turn on blinking hazard lights until it is replaced on the track.
When the car is de-slotted, LumiRace enables the hazard lights until the car is placed on the track again.
An on-board rechargeable battery powers the system both on and off the track. The lights illuminate when power is applied for the first time, and once removed from the track the lights will remain on for a configurable period of time.
LumiRace doesn’t need to be soldered, making it incredibly easy to install. Simply wire it to the braid in parallel with the motor. With the easy-to-use PC software you can easily customize the brightness and behavior of all the lights.
Development Gallery
I started development of LumiRace in Summer 2023. Since then it has undergone a number of design iterations.
The first LumiRace prototype was built around an STM32 dev board for easy programming and debugging. Some of the circuitry I had implemented based on theory didn’t work in practice, but I learned a lot from it. In addition to lighting control, it had a bunch of other cool experimental features that might make it into future products!
The first-ever track run of the LumiRace prototype 1. If you look closely, you can see the brake lights lighting up during deceleration. It met a smokey early demise when during a crash the car rolled over and dragged the exposed MCU pins over the 12V of an adjacent powered lane.
The second LumiRace prototype incorporated what I learned from the first revision. It featured improvements in the braid voltage and de-slot detection. It was small enough to fit more comfortably inside a car.
LumiRace prototype 2 installed in a slot car. The first time I saw this MrSlotCar F1 GTR
, I knew it was going to look awesome with lights.
