Shake Down Device - what for heaven's sake should this be?

Well, new slotcars need some conditioning before their first use on the track. After you put some oil in all bearings and some grease on the pinion it is recommended to let the motor and the gearing shake down at a low voltage. And just for this shaking down I tinkered a small device.

All you need is...

• a short track piece, e.g. a Maerklin Sprint short straight 1202, 1203 or 1204,
• a DC PSU with 3 to 6V,
• a small wooden board as wide as the used track piece (15cm in my case) and something about 20-25cm long,
• a rectangular block of wood as long as the width of the track piece (15cm), about 4-5cm high and 2-3 cm wide,
• another rectangular block of wood with 5 x 2 x 1 cm,
• a socket fitting to your PSU's plug,
• some leads

The adjacent plan shows the setup of the device: the wooden board is used as mounting plate, the 15cm long rectangular block is justified and screwed to base plate. It acts as a buffer for the car and furthermore it carries the socket for the PSU. The smaller block is mounted in alignment with the slot and serves a jack for the car.

Before you start assembling, the bigger rectangular block needs some treatment. In order to be able to mount the track piece justified, you need to drill some notches, where the connectors of the track piece fit in. Also for the power supply socket a according recess has to be drilled.

Finally you have to wire one slot of the track piece to the power socket.

Use some tape to hide the wiring and to smooth the areas the cars will touch. That's it. The Shake Down Device is finished.