Faulty Power Bases

Apologies in advance, if dead power bases are already being discussed elsewhere on this forum.

I've just got back from a week's holiday on a remote Scottish island in the Hebrides, and we had two sets of the new digital Scalextrics to play with So we had a spare power base, plus 4 cars etc.

A good time was had by all, until...

We blew the first power base up after about 4 hours running.

Our second (spare) power base lasted a few days, before it too went faulty :-(

Then we spent two days lamenting the loss of our dear departed Scalextrics.

Power bases appeared to 'die' during some sort of transient overload condition,. Perhaps where the power base's micro-processor was not quick enough to detect a short circuit ??

In the 'dead' mode the screen of the power base can be seen to illuminate briefly for a few micorseconds, when a power converter is initially plugged in. Then screen goes totally blank and there is no voltage on the output rails. Seems that the power bases are presenting a short circuit to the switched mode power supplies, and these power supplies are (correctly) shutting down. Looks like a blown up chip in both faulty power bases to me.

We had two 12VDC supplies plugged in to the power bases when they blew.

Mate who'd brought the Scalextric sets took them both back today for a full refund.

Looks like Hornby have got a serious problem with this revision of the power bases.

Ralph