Review: Max Traxxx 'electronic' finish gate

I was looking around online for this item. Just saw walmart added it to their site for online purchase and free ship to store for $12.99.

    I recon if I remove the inner surface from both sides, 1/8" each side,  should make the unit wide enough for the 3.5"  DT track to fit between the towers.

  ..... Mounting the rig with threaded studs welded to the steel base that the rig's angled "feet" will slide over, washers and nuts will anchor the rig.

  ...  A very careful cut / file can leave a shallow 1/16" deep x 5/16" tall offset in the lower vertical portions after the surfaces have been removed, this will anchor the DT track to the base when the track has been slid through the "slot"...

  pix after they go under the saw !

Ok, I jumped on the bandwagon too. I have one MT finish gate waiting for me to pick up @ my local TRU. PA sales tax is still less than paying for shipping.

On another note, I noticed that Max Traxxx also offers a 2-Lane banked 90deg curve. This is a unique track piece that I've been waiting for someone to make(Mattel's vintage 2-lane curve is 180deg). TRU offered them for only $8ea, so I ordered 2 of them as well. If they work well enough, my road courses are about to become a lot more interesting.

GspeedR

Smitty took some measurements of the finish gate. Great for general reference and if you plan on modding them at all.

Jamie Hutt, a member of LJLRC, VP, and a great guy, gave me one of these yesterday. I tried it out as soon as I got home. I love the simplicity of it in that it doesn't have to be reset. The only thing I find is that the left paddle has to travel further to trip the light. The right paddle activates the light quicker. In a race where the left lane car is ahead by about 1/4" or so the right lane trips the light first. Any one else have this happen and is there a way to fix it?

Tape off everything, light a candle, carefully heat and offset bend the "late" paddle forward 1/2 of the difference between the 2 paddles ... carefully heat and offset bend the "quick" paddle backwards the same 1/2 of the difference...

... an offset bend is made by converting the alternate interior angles to 90* on the letter z...

The paddles being uneven is certainly a thing I noticed out of the box, but as of yet, my finish gate doesn't have such a big gap. If mine is 1/8" if that...probably varies per box too. Although it'll probably get worse the more you race (or maybe better?...haven't raced mine enough yet to test. Let us know how your results go. 

Has anyone opened one of these up to see if a pair could be wired together for a four lane finish line?

@Mo - I've thought about that as we'll. one reason why I got a couple extra. Alas, I don't have the on-hand electrical knowledge to figure it out. If there are any EEs out there, we could use your help :)

There are 4 small phillips head screws which are easily removed with a small screwdriver.  The leg part of the stand is willing to separate easily  The top part with the lights not so easy.  I gave up 'cause I was afraid I would break it.

I picked one up this past weekend and had it apart about five minutes after i got home.  Unfortunately I don't know much about circuit boards.  I think i could come up with a way to do four lanes with three of these finish lines.  One to pick the winner of lanes 1 and 2, one for 3 and 4 and the circuit board from a third to pick the winner from the two sets.  Pictures of the insides:

I can tell the finish line is off a little bit.  One lane triggers slightly before the other and the shape of the cars affects how early the gate gets triggered. That said, even though it's off, I can now tell much easier who the winner is.  Somehow just having the gate there makes me much more certain about the winner.  Probably just having a line makes it easier to tell than having the cars dissapear under a pillow.