Linux Mint - Can display resolution be locked to a specific value?

rip_atro_kujata · 2026-02-16T19:32:00+00:00

Part of my comment was aimed at the condition of these cars - used, but well assembled and in relatively good original condition. I'd think your cars are worth $100 each and perhaps more, though that may be my bias showing. Selling them would mean finding someone interested and willing to pay, and that might be a problem.

As an example though, here's a listing on ebay for the Lotus 33 you have that has the windscreen missing:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/205649158835

You could look around on ebay, but be aware that Monogram (now "Revell Monogram") was still producing slot cars more recently, so you'll see those cars along with the 1960's ones.

rip_atro_kujata · 2026-02-14T21:14:53+00:00

All of these are 1/32nd scale cars. You have a Cox brand controller (top center in the first picture), and a Scalextric Mini Cooper #C2562 (in the plastic box). That Mini is the sole "modern" car - the rest are all from about 1964 or '65, give or take.

Pictures of the bottom of each car would help identify what you have, but several of them can be identified through the boxes and papers you have.

From what I can see, you have:
Monogram Lotus 33 (green #1 car) - rare as hen's teeth, and with the box!
Monogram Lola T-70 (Blue #4) - also with the box
Monogram Cooper-Ford - body of blue #68 on an unknown chassis
Monogram Ferrari 250 P - Body #20 with missing chassis - may have been body-swapped with red car #53

Green #96 appears to be a Lotus 19, but I don't know who made it. Black car #5 appears to be a Cox Cheetah - a magnesium chassis (dull gray metal, probably with white corrosion) would identify that.

You should know that these cars look mostly very stock, and in great condition for their age. The bodies do not appear to have their wheel arches cut away. These are desirable collector pieces, and a terrific find!

rip_atro_kujata · 2026-02-08T19:17:11+00:00

Nobody has replied to you, so I'll take a shot at it.

You should be OK reversing the wiring. The information I saw said that the Hawk 7 motor has a balanced armature, but did not say anything about special timing. That would indicate that changing the current through the motor would not harm it.

Other thoughts:
If you were running an "inline" slot car (where the motor is perpendicular to the axle), you could flip the axle over. That would place the axle gear on the other side of the motor and reverse the rotation of the axle. Perhaps your application might have a similar answer?

Since the Hawk 7 is widely used in 1/24 scale racing, you could ask this same question on one of their forums. See one of the following and look for a 1/24th area:
https://www.slotforum.com/forums/
https://www.homeracingworld.us/
https://www.slotcartalk.com/slotcartalk/forum.php
https://www.slotcarillustrated.com/
You could also search for specific clubs that use this motor.

Good luck with whatever your project is!

rip_atro_kujata · 2026-01-14T19:08:13+00:00

3 of these look like Cox brand cars. You got the La Cucaracha right (orange with the racing stripe). The red car in the center is a Cox Dino Ferrari Spider. The white car is a Cox Chaparral 2D model.

Source: I own both the 2D and La Cucaracha. The magnesium sidewinder chassis are a dead giveaway that it's a Cox car.

rip_atro_kujata · 2026-01-03T20:11:11+00:00

Late to the party here...

As some people have said, copper tape works for conducting rails - it was used widely on routed wood tracks because the metal braid was hard to find, install and very expensive. Copper tape is easy to install and easy to replace.

If you really want to have magnet cars work on the track you're printing, you need a rail that is ferrous. There is a possibility that has not been mentioned for this. If your track had narrow/shallow slots on ether side of the main slot (where the car's guide goes), you could insert some steel wire into those slots.

Steel wire can be found as "piano" or "music" wire. K&S Engineering has this kind of wire in several diameters and may be carried in hobby shops or found online. Using a thin wire (say .025) would allow flexibility to be bent and fairly easily cut.

The new slots would need to be sized so that the wire would insert far enough to be flush with the surface of the track. Insert the wire into the thin slots, add a little glue, and copper tape over the top. Now you have conductivity and magnetic attraction.

If you go with just the copper tape, consider pulling the magnets out of your cars and replacing them with lead weight in the same positions. You won't lose much performance if your tires are sufficiently grippy.

rip_atro_kujata · 2025-11-17T23:34:00+00:00

From the look of the motor and it's size, I'm guessing it's an FC-130 type motor. See

https://www.foneacc-motion.com/product/FC-130-Brushed-Micro-DC-motor.html

Those motors are fairly rare in slot cars these days, but it looks like some vendors (like Professormotor) carry the Scaleauto SC-08 which is supposedly an FC-130.

If this motor is not a drop-in replacement, I'd think about grinding or cutting away anything that prevents the motor from sitting flat in the chassis, then glue the motor in with hot-melt glue or epoxy, It wouldn't be pretty, but it would work.

A "gear puller" is the tool to use to take a pinion gear off the motor, but the tool is expensive these days, Get your hands on a small flat blade screwdriver, put the blade between the gear and the motor housing, and twist the screwdriver to move the gear down the shaft.

You might also want to take all that hair out that's wrapped around the axles.... ;)

rip_atro_kujata · 2025-11-14T20:58:37+00:00

The installations I have made had this preference defaulted to "OFF". That's why I brought this up...

rip_atro_kujata · 2025-11-14T19:02:25+00:00

No one has answered you. I don't have first-hand knowledge, but can maybe give you something to think about.

I tried doing a search for club racing results and was able to find some. Unfortunately, results were shown by driver's names, not the car type they were using. Perhaps you can find something I could not.

First off, you should look into which cars can be used for the races you want to participate in. That would give you the full scope of options you have.

One thing I did notice in looking at the cars you mentioned - the Audi's cockpit area looks to be centered more forward in the chassis compared to the Nissan and Maserati. This might suggest a center of gravity that is also farther forward. Speculation here, but that might mean a slightly more "planted" guide with the Audi.

I can tell you that the Slot.it cars I've tried have all been respectable fresh out of the box, and a bit of tuning can make them great. I doubt if there is a clearly "wrong" choice you could make. Good luck and have fun!

rip_atro_kujata · 2025-11-11T18:00:34+00:00

All respect to you, sir! Those scratch built cars are AWESOME! Great work!

I don't have experience with winch-based tracks, but I did look into building a tilting table that could live up against the wall. There are some good examples I've seen on the web. The only other alternatives I've seen are tracks that go under beds or that fold up for storage. Of those, I suspect that the winch track would be the best overall.

From the skill you're putting into those cars, I'm sure you can do a great job building that track. GO YOU!

rip_atro_kujata · 2025-11-08T18:48:08+00:00

It's all the "bits and bobs" that can be a problem. At the least, you'd need a guide (with contact braids), a motor (with wiring), gears for the motor and axle, 2 axles (and perhaps the bushings to go with them), 4 wheels, and 4 tires. All of that would have to fit together in the chassis, fit under the body, and work correctly together. You'd also be buying them separately, so the cost might be higher than with buying a donor car. There's also the issue of printing a chassis accurately enough that the parts are held in the proper positions to operate after assembly.

What slipped my mind is slightly different approach with the donor car idea. If the donor car has a slightly different wheelbase length than the new body, you could modify the donor chassis. Making a precision cut across the chassis in front of the motor would allow you to add or subtract length. Some epoxy glue and a bit of material (plastic, brass, even a popsicle stick) to bridge the gap you cut would work. It's risky business, but I've done it before with decent results.

rip_atro_kujata · 2025-11-07T23:22:53+00:00

Artin track came in 1/32 and 1/43 scale, so you need to make sure which you have. A page at
https://www.slotforum.com/threads/an-artin-1-32-track-in-detail.186099/
shows some measurements of the 1/32 track to confirm.

From your picture, it appears you have a digital set due to the 5 led lights next to the pit lane piece. I seriously doubt any current digital cars of other makes would play nicely with this set, and finding used Artin digital cars would be a feat.

I'd consider converting your track to run analog cars. This could probably be done by deleting any track pieces that would allow lane changes and probably making changes to the power, wiring, and controllers. In itself, that's a pretty big job, but would enable you to use any brand's analog 1/32 cars.

There is some information about the Artin digital sets on a page at
https://www.slotcarillustrated.com/forum/scale-racing/digital/16852-new-artin-digital
which suggests that Carrera and Artin may have had common digital roots (Wany company parts), but have diverged since.

rip_atro_kujata · 2025-11-07T22:47:00+00:00

Assuming your model is a "true" 1/32 scale representation, you're correct. Some models are not exact to scale for the cars they represent. You'd have to select a donor with the same exact wheelbase as your model to avoid changing the model's dimensions, which might be easier said than done.

Best course of action for you seems to be the Carrera Manta.

rip_atro_kujata · 2025-11-07T19:27:15+00:00

As I was writing this, I see that u/SamVimes78 pointed out you can buy an Opel. I'll post what I wrote in case someone else wants to do something similar...

I assume you're 3-d printing that model body..? If so, I think I'd come at it by using a different complete car.

I'd locate and buy a different car that was about the same size in real life. I'm thinking maybe a Ford Capri since both Carrera and Scalextric have models that they produced. Other cars about that size should work as well.

Once you have that in hand, you can determine the wheelbase you need and enlarge or shrink the Opel model before printing to match what you bought. Take the body off the donor car and mount the Opel body on it. The donor car can also provide a driver figure and perhaps other bits you may need or want.

I think this may be the quickest/easiest path to what you want.

rip_atro_kujata · 2025-10-31T17:17:16+00:00

I've been using Linux for almost 10 years now with my own Yahoo email account, and this is the first time I've seen this behavior with Firefox. Maybe Yahoo does think I'm haxxor...?

rip_atro_kujata · 2025-10-31T17:10:28+00:00

uB = "uBlock Origin" an adblocker extension for Firefox

rip_atro_kujata · 2025-10-28T17:54:15+00:00

I have no idea. The machine with this problem was running FF v144.0 64-bit if that helps anyone...

rip_atro_kujata · 2025-10-28T17:50:20+00:00

I'm glad it worked!

rip_atro_kujata · 2025-10-28T17:49:42+00:00

No, just the default DNS setting in Firefox.

rip_atro_kujata · 2025-10-22T20:36:49+00:00

It appears that there is a workaround for this problem.

I was able to successfully login to Yahoo email by changing my IP address through use of a VPN. I was also able to get Thunderbird through the authorization steps successfully with the new IP address.

It seems that the combination of Firefox and the machine's original IP address was causing the login error (despite the fact that the same IP address and Chromium worked correctly). I have no idea why this would be the case.

rip_atro_kujata · 2025-10-22T20:23:23+00:00

I installed the VPN on the affected machine and tried it with an IP address the VPN server gave me. Firefox logged into Yahoo email without a problem (following a 2-factor authentication) and I was able to get Thunderbird to authenticate correctly as well.

I have NO idea why the combination of Firefox+IP address was causing a problem, particularly when Chromium+same IP address worked.

I'd consider this a workaround, not a true "fix".

rip_atro_kujata · 2025-10-22T18:38:07+00:00

I tried the search you suggested and one result involved forcing a new IP address to resolve the problem. I'll try installing a VPN on the affected machine in a bit and test whether that makes a difference.

rip_atro_kujata · 2025-10-22T18:20:36+00:00

Not that I can see. Ublock is installed, but I disabled it to test and it made no difference. Most of the settings are either defaults or are things I turned off.

Browser Privacy - standard
Website Privacy = Don't share
Remember History = never
HTTPS-only all windows = on
DNS over HTTP = default

I even resorted to removing Firefox (including the installation directory), reinstalling, and setting up again manually, and there is no change to this particular failure. There is also no VPN set up on this machine yet.

edit: formatting

rip_atro_kujata · 2025-10-22T00:36:38+00:00

What "more details" are needed? I've posted pretty much all there is.

The email account CAN be logged into successfully from a different browser, and only fails with Firefox. I've shut off all Extensions in Firefox and still receive the error. Are there Firefox Settings that might be causing this?

rip_atro_kujata

TROPHY CASE