Patent Application
20210086093
The present invention relates generally to the field of electric toy vehicles, such as electric toy trains and slot cars, and the tracks on which they run, and more specifically to flexible, stowable electric toy vehicular track systems wherein the tracks form a closed circuit.
In this era when digital toys and games have largely replaced their mechanical and electrical counterparts, electric toy train and race car tracks have remained popular among both children and adults. Often, because they occupy a lot of space, such tracks are set up for holidays, birthdays and other special occasions and then stored away when not in use. The set up and disassembly of such tracks is a time-consuming job which discourages their more frequent use. Therefore, the present invention advantageously provides an electric toy vehicular track system which requires no assembly or disassembly and yet can be stored in a compact format.
The present invention is an electric toy vehicular track system that can be used with electric toy trains or race cars. The tracks comprise flexible, electrically conductive toy vehicular “rails,” which can be conductive wires or strips. The rails are embedded in the upper surface of a flexible mat, which can be disposed in a rolled-out configuration, when the track system is in use, or in a rolled-up cylindrical configuration, for compact storage when not in use. In the rolled-out configuration, the flexible mat lies flat upon a horizontal supporting surface, such as a floor or a tabletop. Upon being rolled out, the track system can be connected to its electric power source, such as a household AC circuit, through one or more power control units.
A vehicular toy track is defined by a rail set comprising one or more of the toy vehicular rails. Most commonly, for electric toy trains and race cars, two rails would constitute a single track. The flexible mat contains one or more toy vehicular tracks, each of which forms a closed-circuit track path, comprising multiple straight track sections and multiple curved track sections.
The electric toy vehicular track system includes one or more electric toy vehicles, each of which contains at least one electric locomotive motor. The electric locomotive motor has a variable speed and can be of any variable speed electric motor type known in the art, but preferably it is a DC motor, the speed of which controlled by the voltage supplied to the motor's armature. Each electric toy vehicle is configured to electrically engage at least one—and typically two—of the toy vehicular rails in the track on which it's running, so that the locomotive motor is electrically connected to an electric power supply through the rails engaged by the toy vehicle.
The electric power supply can comprise DC batteries and/or an AC-supplied DC power converter. The electric power supply is connectable to the toy vehicular rails through a speed control unit comprising one or more variable resistors that are controllable to vary a supply voltage to the electric locomotive motors so as to vary their speed and thus the speed of toy vehicles in which they are installed.
In the preferred embodiments of the present invention, a speed selector switch is inserted between the speed control unit and the toy vehicular rails. The purpose of the speed selector switch is to provide for different skill levels in operating the speed control so as to avoid de-railment of the toy vehicles along the curved track sections. Accordingly, the speed selector switch has multiple selector positions, each of which routes the electric power in a different way.
In one of the preferred embodiments, the speed selector switch has a “Beginner Level,” an “Intermediate Level,” an “Advanced Level,” and an “Automatic Level.” In the “Beginner Level” the selector position connects the electric power supply to the toy vehicular rails through the speed control unit and through one or more primary deceleration resistors, which reduce the supply voltage to the locomotive motors, thereby limiting the motors' speed and the corresponding vehicles' speed on both straight and curved track sections. In the “Intermediate Level,” the selector position connects the electric power supply to the toy vehicle rails in the straight track sections directly through the speed control unit and connects the electric power supply to the rails in the curved track sections through the speed control unit and through one or more secondary deceleration resistors. The secondary deceleration resistors reduce the supply voltage to the locomotive motors while the toy vehicles are engaging the curved track sections, thereby limiting their speed on those sections.
In the “Advanced Level,” the selector position connects the electric power supply to the toy vehicular rails in both the straight and curved track sections directly through the speed control unit, thereby giving the operator full power control over the vehicle's speed throughout the track circuit. In the “Automatic Level,” the selector position directly connects the electric power supply to the toy vehicular through the speed control unit and through one or more tertiary deceleration resistors, which can be separate resistors for the straight track sections and the curved track sections, and at least one of which can be a variable resistor. This mode allows the toy vehicles to run on the track without operator control and without de-railment on the curves.
The foregoing summarizes the general design features of the present invention. In the following sections, specific embodiments of the present invention will be described in some detail. These specific embodiments are intended to demonstrate the feasibility of implementing the present invention in accordance with the general design features discussed above. Therefore, the detailed descriptions of these embodiments are offered for illustrative and exemplary purposes only, and they are not intended to limit the scope either of the foregoing summary description or of the claims which follow.
In the slot car tracks 13, the rails 14 are horizontally embedded in the flexible mat 15, as shown in
The track mat 15 is made of a flexible material, such as rubber or neoprene, preferably ¼-inch-thick, and capable of being rolled up into a tight tubular cylindrical rolled-up form, as shown in
Detail views of exemplary control panels 20 are shown in
An exemplary electric circuit for the slot car tracks 13 is depicted in
The selector switch 26 pole 1 directs its #1 position through a first primary 10-ohm resistor 31 to the straight track sections 27, while pole 2 directs its #1 position through a second primary 10-ohm resistor 32 to the curved track sections 28. Pole 1 of the selector switch 26 directs its #2 position directly to the straight track sections 27, while pole 2 directs its #2 position to the curved track sections 28 through a secondary 10-ohm resistor, which in this case is the same as the second primary 10-ohm resistor 32. Both pole 1 and pole 2 direct their #3 positions directly to both the straight 27 and curved 28 track sections. Pole 1 directs its #4 position to the straight track sections 27 through a first tertiary 20-ohm variable resistor 33, while pole 2 directs its #4 position to curved track sections through a second tertiary 20-ohm variable resistor 34.
As shown in
Although the preferred embodiment of the present invention has been disclosed for illustrative purposes, those skilled in the art will appreciate that many additions, modifications and substitutions are possible, without departing from the scope and spirit of the present invention as defined by the accompanying claims.
