Professor Motor Electronic Controller

PMTR 2053

Professor Motor "Scale Racer PRO" Model Electronic Slot Racing Controller - Recommended Operating Voltage Range : 14 to 19 volts - POSITIVE polarity - Includes variable brakes, variable sensitivity (single knob adjust), internal aluminum heat sink, silicone leads & solid copper alligator clips w/boots - New "Platinum Series" transistor based technology - Recommended Applications : HO, 1/32 & 1/24 home and club track racing through JK Falcon & 16D Motors.

Professor Motor is proud to bring you the new "PLATINUM SERIES" electronic slot racing controllers. This new technology represents another advance in our production of affordable & super robust electronics for control of slot racing cars. These new transistor-based controllers are particularly noted for improved on-track performance & in our testing achieved measurable improvements in lap times over any other controller model we have manufactured. The balance of this page goes through the features & functions of this new controller series & some reasons why the design is built the way it is. I hope you enjoy the info & thanks for listening.

Da' Guts:
our original series of controllers was the "PLUS" series, those circuit boards were blue in color, most recent controllers produced were part of the "Silver" series & contained a red color circuit board & the new "Platinum Series" transistor-based controls will be purple as shown above. Hopefully that will help in telling one controller apart from another. The transistor that is the heart of this new device can not be seen in the picture above, but it is mounted in the upper right of this picture, sitting behind the circuit board & sandwiched between the circuit board and the aluminum heat sink inside the back of the handle. What follows is some further info on features & functions of the new "platinum" series ...

Sensitivity Adjust:
With this new controller a single knob sensitivity adjustment feature is used. The specific technology used in this case is a high quality wire wound potentiometer or "pot". That sensitivity adjust "pot" in the picture above is the right hand mounted version on the two round metal cans protruding from the circuit board. The single knob adjust feature should be easier to use & less confusing than the 8 individual knobs in the "silver" and "plus" series controllers and there are no parts to come loose & get lost. That "pot" has a plastic knob on the back side of the controller with a small white line. When the line is straight up the sensitivity is at a minimum, when the knob is turned counter-clockwise from that straight up position sensitivity is increased, providing more power to the car on initial throttle application. The sensitivity adjust feature gives the controller a very wide range of authority enabling proper control over a wide range of possible power supply voltages and with a very wide range of cars.

Brake Adjust:
With this new controller a high quality wire wound potentiometer or "pot" is used to vary the braking performance by adding some resistance in the braking circuit. . That brake adjust "pot" in the picture above is the left hand mounted round metal can. The plastic knob from this pot on the back side of the controller is color coded with a red dye. The small white line when straight up means that brakes are at the maximum, when the knob is turned counter-clockwise more resistance is introduced into the braking system and the braking effect of the car is reduced. Again, this adjust feature has a very wide range of authority.

Fault Tolerant Design:
Transistor controllers in general have not had a real good reputation in slot racing. A few years ago Trinity produced 10,000 transistor controllers using a transistor based design, those were terribly unreliable & far better suited as paper weights than controllers (I know I have several !). More recently Parma produced their "EC" line of electronic transistor controller, those again did not do well & have been discontinued by Parma with no more aid available for the distraught customers who now have theirs go "POOF". So one of our goals in creating this new design was to achieve a much more rugged device that will can take the punishment that a controller sees and still keep on "ticking" ... I am happy to say we have achieved that & more with the circuitry inside this new design. We think this new purple wonder is every bit as robust as our current designs & we have run full simulations of possible fault conditions such as accidental misconnects & we pass with flying colors with better performance than any other controller made today.

Contact System:
Our new gadget uses a brand new approach to the contact system. Since the transistor is used only a small current is used in the contact system vs. all of the current as with the prior designs. This fundamentally makes the contact system more robust. In addition a hard nickel coating is used on the circuit board and a silver alloy contact button is used on the wiper arm. Since the nickel is much harder than the silver alloy only the silver button will wear with use and no resurfacing is required on the nickel surface as was required with the prior designs brass contacts. Attention is needed from the user to keep the contacts clean, however, to make sure that foreign objects and debris will not cause bridging of the contacts, but that is an easy process to follow & is described in detail in the instruction sheet packaged with the controller.

Race Winning Performance:
As part of the development of this new design we produced a number of prototype controllers for customer use. We were very pleased when the customers gave us feedback that actual lap times were improved in their racing, we had found the same thing in our own testing. To date in our competition program the new controller prototypes are 6 & 0 (6 wins out of 6 races entered !). And even more information from recent testing, the production model of the controllers are even measurably faster per lap than the original prototypes. Wow ! We greatly appreciate all the super feedback from our "evaluation fleet" customers ... that really has helped us build a better "mousetrap".

Ergonometrics:
"Ergonometrics" is a big word meaning the science of designing for people interface. Feedback from past designs indicated to us that the long trigger travel of the old designs caused real discomfort for some people & was very awkward particularly for those with smaller hands. In this new design we made improvements in that area by shortening the controller stroke substantially and thus allowing the trigger to rest much closer to the handle than before. Since there is very light tension in the wiper arm assembly with this new design the trigger spring tension can be correspondingly less and that can also provide more user comfort.

What About the "Old" Controllers ?
Initially, the only impact that this new transistor-based design will have is that we will now discontinue the PMTR2052 current "top end" model in favor of this new technology. The new PMTR2053 and PMTR2054 controllers now become the "top of the line". All of the other current "Silver Series" diode-based controllers will remain in production as will all of the service parts needed to maintain them. Some new options will be available soon such as a wire wound brake pot kit for use in the "silver" and "plus" series controllers, that should make user installation of a variable braking system much easier.

What's Next ?
We plan to make a real robust commercial track controller for the super 16D through Group 27 motor crowd using the same type of technology. If that is your thing please stay tuned ......

please see the Liquids Catalog for more information and follow the NEW instructions for the required maintenance.