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Professor Motor Silver Series Carrera Controller

Published: September 15, 2002

Andy Smith, A.K.A. Professor Motor, has been involved with slot cars since the stone age, with an early rail racing set. With an impressive history of racing, innovating, and winning, the good Professor has owned and operated slot car raceways, sponsored races, and has even been active in motorsports. Professor Motor went online in 1999 with his own line of slot car parts and controllers. His controllers are widely accepted as being some of the best, and I felt it was time I found out why.

Controllers most commonly use resistors to change the amount of voltage to the track. The user will pull a trigger or push a plunger changing the position of a contact on the resistor. At full throttle very little, if any of the resistor is being used. At it's slowest speed almost all of the resistor is being used.

Resistors have several flaws. One is they get hot. As resistors get hot, they conduct differently changing the characteristics of how they perform. When resistors are used too long they burn up and become useless (and smelly). The Professor Motor Controller uses solid state technology that does not rely on the traditional variable resistor. The wiper makes contact with little buttons, and diodes, not resistors, do all the work.

The controllers plug directly into the stock Carrera power base. Since Carrera is already wired for brakes, the Professor Motor controller naturally takes advantage of this. The instructions clearly tell you how to plug it in correctly, and even offers some trouble shooting should the car act incorrectly once the controller is installed.

Now, while I'm not set up to give you a full, scientific breakdown of how well the Professor Motor performs under laboratory conditions, I will do my best to give you some idea of how this controller compares to the stock Carrera controllers.

The first thing I noticed was that the top end output is greater than the stock controllers. Holding a car on the track with it's rear tires lifted, with full throttle applied, there is a noticeable difference in the pitch between the two controllers. The Professor Motor allows more power to reach the track.

In comparing the controllers I also found that the power curve for the Professor Motor controller from zero throttle to full throttle was much more linear. What this means is that at half throttle there is very close to half power going to the track. In comparison, the stock Carrera controller at half throttle only allows

maybe 1/4 of the power to the track. Then there is a sharp increase of power on up to full throttle. The Professor motor is much more smooth, or linear, in applying power to the track. The graph at the left, although grossly unscientific, represents what I am trying to convey on this.

What this all means is that the Professor Motor controller has a much more manageable power curve than the stock controller. This is most noticeable when cornering.

Applying power to muscle your way out of a curve can be tricky when the so much power is being applied in such a short throw of the throttle as is the case with the stock controller. I have found that once I became familiar with the Professor Motor controller, it was very hard to go back and race effectively with a stock controller. The Professor Motor controllers are that much better.

One more big plus with the Professor Motor controllers, whether they are for the Carrera home sets, or for any other application, is that they are all modular and upgradeable. Professor Motor makes available several upgrades that you can install yourself to make your controller do what you want, or need, it to do.

Upgrades such as power pilot lights, low friction steel/brass trigger bushing & lock nuts, variable sensitivity, electronic self resetting circuit breaker (standard on new this controller), polarity reversing switch system, variable brake system and more are available from Professor Motors dealers.

At under $50 each, it might sound a bit expensive when you could just buy another car for the same price. From the experience I had, it was like driving all of my cars again for the first time. This controller is well worth getting, and will open up a whole new dimension to slot car racing for you. It did for me.

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