Building on my last post about AC2Car Lane Spacing and Typical Slot Car Spacing and the use of graphic programs such as Adobe Illustrator, here are some visuals regarding what I like to call Car Collision Diagrams and Copper Collision Diagrams. If you recall with AI (Adobe Illustrator) you can draw a singular line and apply visual stroke widths to it. This can enable you to quickly see good and bad areas in your digital track file prep. With a stroke width applied to a line of 180 points (Representing the width of a car) you can create virtual slots and see how cars will mingle with one another. Good and bad can come of this. The most obvious is when you have typical slot car spacing you never want these car lines to run together. With AC2Car its a bit different with the ability to pass. I suggest for a better understanding of the principle slot layout for AC2Car visit our track building page.

Now likewise and more important to AC2Car is taking those same AI lines and applying the stroke value for copper width (Slot and two pieces of copper is a 46 point width) to see where you might have copper from one lane touching an adjacent lane. This is paramount with AC2Car’s tight lane spacing. By going back and forth between car collision stroke width and copper collision stroke width you can succesfully plan your track virtually before routing.

Here is the same section of track, this first image is Correct with NO problem areas with car or copper collisions:

Now this Second Image you can see in the Car Collsion Diagram where Lane 2A is going to hit Lane 1B. Also in the Copper Collision Diagram you can see where lane 2A and 1A Copper would touch one another, ohh ouch shocker!

And there you have it! For Standard AC2Car Spacing, these simple diagrams can help you design your track and once you’re finished you can use the very same files for routing. For the daring you might try squeezes in areas where no cars can pass, or wide open even spaced areas where all lanes can pass integrated into your track. Careful though these types will require more experienced respectable drivers to avoid car on car crashes (From experience on my WLF1 Ring)

One of the main reasons I was turned on to AC2Car tracks was the lane spacing. This provides two wonderful aspects: Narrower road widths and two unique drive lines around the track for each driver. Narrow road widths mean more track in your space. Two lines around for each driver means twice the fun! Continuing into the future I’ll try and provide some insight into AC2Car track design begining here with this visual:

This is based on a four lane track. You can instantly see the road width advantage of AC2Car Spacing. I use Adobe Illustrator for track design, if you are familiar with it or other graphic vector programs such as Corel Draw you can do it too. I look at a track design in two distinct ways for AC2Car. One is the slot and copper spacing which I call Copper Collision Drawings. Number two is car spacing which I call Car Collision Drawings. In Vector based programs you can draw singular lines and apply stroke widths to them. Stroke widths are merely a visual width of a line, the program and others still see it as a singular no width line which is useful down the road. You can draw line segments with a pen tool in the software and apply the appropriate stroke width to it to see how things are running together. Obviously you don’t want the copper from one lane touching another and depending on the type of track you don’t want cars running into each other. In AC2 Car’s case its a little of both. You can find explanations of that in the Track Building section. In the graphic above I’ve noted Adobe Illustrator stroke values for the copper and slot width as well as a 1/32 scale car width. By combining the two visuals you can create a succesful plan before routing a single piece of wood.