Dead Strips

Dead strips have a number of advantages compared to other sensing methods that are used with
counting/timing systems. There does not have to be a light bridge over the track and you do not have
to worry that dirt might obstruct sensors on the track surface. The depth of a car's guide flag is not a
factor and only cars that are actually in the slot will be counted. As with any type of sensor it is best to
locate dead strips where the cars are least likely to come off. Ordinary dead strips do have several
disadvantages, for one thing they will only work properly with the cars running in one direction, if you
like to run your track in both directions special precautions must be taken. A second disadvantage to
ordinary dead strips is that track voltage can get fed to a computer's port and cause it to burn out.
Once again there are ways to minimize or eliminate this problem. Finally of course if you stop your
car on the dead strips it will not run! Strips two to four inches long can be used.

With any sensing system a count is triggered when there is a change of state. In the case of dead
strips with nothing across the strips there is a voltage present. For my TrikTrax that is 8 volts and for
Trackmate it is 4.5 volts. When a car crosses the strips they are nearly shorted out and the voltage
goes almost to zero, that is the change of state. Here is where the problem of polarity comes in, when
a car is coasting across the dead strips the motor is acting as a generator. A Scalextric motor turning
at 20K RPM puts out 8 volts. If that voltage is the wrong polarity the voltage across the dead strips
will not go to zero and the count will be missed. If the dead strips work when they are shorted with a
pair of pliers, but only count when a car is going slowly that is a sure sign that the polarity is wrong
and that the wires to the computer need to be reversed.
If you like to run your track in both directions you can add a Double Pole Double Throw switch in the
wiring to the sensors for each lane.
One way to minimize the chance of track voltage cooking your computer's port is to have guard strips
on either side of the dead strips.

There is another way of eliminating the threat and that is to put zener diodes across the dead strips.
Like other diodes Zener diodes normally only conduct in one direction, the difference is that they also
conduct in the other direction once a certain voltage is present and thus they act like a voltage
regulator. Zener diodes are available with different voltage ratings, in order to select the correct one
you have to measure the open circuit voltage across your dead strips and pick ones that are closest
in value. If you are using reversing switches with your dead strips you have to put the Zener diodes in
the right place. It is necessary to include a resistor in the circuit or the Zener could burn out. The
resistor value would depend on the track voltage, but it probably should be at least 1K ohm.
Several new dead strip arrangements have been developed that eliminate the polarity and track
voltage issues. The first of those is what I call an inline dead strip.
This type of dead strip will work well with cars that have braided pickups, with HO cars that mostly
have pickup shoes there could be missed counts. Since only one of the car's braids is used the motor
is not in the circuit, thus eliminating the polarity issue. In order for the port to see track voltage there
would have to be a short between one rail and one of the dead strips and at the same time there
would have to be a short between the other track rail and the other half of the dead strip, which is
quite unlikely. The computer ports do not really like having a short across them, so adding a 150 ohm
resistor for each lane is necessary to prevent damage. Several people have tried this arrangement
and found the it is important to keep the gap between the two halves very short.
The second type of improved dead strip is used in England and is really not a dead strip at all, a car
that stopped on it would still be able to run.

Once again only one braid is needed to complete the circuit, cars with pickup shoes may not always
count properly and a resistor should be included for each lane.
My own track has plain standard dead strips with no guard strips. In the past I used a TrikTrax
counter/timer, now I have Trackmate with the dead strip option that includes zener diodes. A further
option with built in reversing switches is also available.

Here is the pin arrangement for a DB-9 connector:

Top row pins 1-5

Bottom row pins 6-9

For a serial connection there is usually a male DB-9 connector on the computer, sometimes there are
two and older computers may use a male DB-25 connector. With a DB-9 connector pin 5 is common,
pin 1 is lane 1, pin 9 is lane 2, pin 6 is lane 3 and pin 8 is lane 4.
With a DB-25 connector for a serial connection pin 7 is common, pin 8 is lane 1, pin 22 is lane 2, pin 6
is lane 3 and pin 5 is lane 4.

Male Female
For a parallel (printer) connection a female DB-25 connector is used on the computer. Pin 23 or 25
can be the common, pin 10 is lane 1, pin 11 is lane 2, pin 12 is lane 3 and pin 13 is lane 4. In order to
make the connection you will need a male DB-25 connector.

Before you connect your dead strips to the computer you can avoid a certain amount of frustration if
you test the ports before you do anything else. First boot up the software that you are going to use.
You may have to go into the setup part of the program to select the type of sensor that you are using
and you also need to tell the computer what ports to use. For Windows go to Start, Control Panel,
Hardware and Sound, then Device Manager. If you are testing the parallel port the connector on the
computer is female, you can plug one end of a 150 ohm resistor into one of the common pins, usually
pin 25, and plug the other end into pins 10 thru 13 to see if counts are triggered. If you are testing a
DB-9 serial port that will have a male connector. You will have to plug a serial cable into that and do
the test at the other end of the cable using pin 5 as the common and pins 1, 9, 6 and 8 for the lanes.
It is best to run a separate common wire back to the connector that will make up with the computer,
even though they all will connect to the same pin.

A note on computers that only have USB ports

Newer computers do not have serial or printer ports, they only have USB ports and that makes it
more difficult to connect homebrew sensors of any sort. As I mentioned earlier there are serial to USB
and parallel to USB adapters. I have never heard of anyone connecting their sensors directly to either
of those. One solution to the problem is to buy an Arduino board. If you have Race Coordinator there
is a PDF included in the software that has instructions on how to connect one of those. There have
been some issues with using an Arduino Uno board with dead strips. One person has reported that
simply changing the debounce setting in Race Coordinator to 500 fixed his problem.
There would be a possibility that track voltage might damage an Arduino board, here is one way to
eliminate that hazard.
Here is another circuit, this one uses an optocoupler, note that one of these is needed for each lane.

Now there is a wireless connection for dead strips, the system is called exoSlot: The dead strips are
connected to a transmitter and what looks like a thumb drive is a receiver that plugs into a USB port
on your computer. exoSlot is one of the choices that is available when you set up Race Coordinator.

© 2018 by Richard Dumas