Have you ever seen this?

[RomanK]

Steve, you want the diode in the (+) positive side of the dead strip, Assuming your track is wired like most (positive to the Right as the car travels) the "common" is probably wired to the left side of the dead strip and a single wire is attached to each Right side braid (total of 6) on the dead strip, if this is the case, yes, a diode in each wire with the band/strip pointing towards the computer (away from the dead strip). You can easily confirm that (+) Positive is on the right with a DC Volt meter.

[oldweirdherald]

I have added these diodes to the OWH Slot Car Shop: (with a link to this thread for info)

25 pcs 1N4001 Diode 1A 50V



$2.99

---> CLICK HERE <---

[aquavelvis]

I race at this guy's shop in San Antonio, and no such problem. In fact, the dead strip isn't even dead...your car stops there during a track call, leave it there and it takes off just fine when the power's back on.

Don't know why...like a lot of things in life, it's magic to me. Maybe this guy can take the time to splain it.

[RomanK]

Scott, it all depends on the type of Lap counter system and what voltage is applied to the dead strip.

[aquavelvis]

OK. All I know about Jim's system is that it's "vintage"...installed on a Compaq. As to voltage, he says somewhere up above that the strip has 24 volts in it.

Thanks Roman

[HurricaneLarry]

This may be an old thread , but an interesting read regardless.

Noise is your issue....I have had similar issue with lap counters before.nothing new... and in Chicago NATS 13 they had the polarity wrong in reference to the track.
With a LapMaster it has to be opposite where a positive from the track is crossing a negative of the lapmaster dead strip.
It can work in most cases either way but not recommended, depending on the type of cars you're running.
AnyWay....
Why don't you just use a monolithic cap crossed the dead strip inputs.
This will filter out any noise

except Roman noise.... hahahah

Man I miss posting here

[slotcarsten]

LapMaster systems already have a noise filter on the input (22 ohm resitor in serie, + 10 uF and 1000 ohm in parrallel)
This forms a filter that rejects noise pulses shorter than 1/10.000 second.
However after the discoveries from this thread, all new LapMaster systems also has a diode in serie to guard against reverse polarity pulses.

I try to build the best possible system I can.

[RomanK]

Thanks for the input Larry but Carsten's suggested solution was right on the money.