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Faulty Power Bases

2830 Views 25 Replies 8 Participants Last post by  Ghost
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
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did you have a standard power base in the track at the same time? (even if it wasnt plugged in?)
wankel - there are a lot of retailers on the forum, and the only comments they have made so far is that customers have been very happy and returns have been a small proportion.

There's no point complaining about a product on behalf of someone else's imagined problem!
QUOTE (Wankel Ickx @ 4 Jan 2005, 13:36)Er, um? I'm not imagining problems - these guys took there toys back because they clearly were not of satisfactory quality or durability.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You were imagining unhappy retailers. If they make a lot of money and satisfied customers compared to the work they have to do to help customers with problems, they are happy retailers.
i hate to be argumentative too, but...

if they don't like returns at all, maybe they shouldn't be in retail. Part of the justification for 100% price markup from trade to retail is dealing with returns (yes - stock and overheads too). Saying they don't like returns is like saying they don't like telephone bills, or rent, or getting up in the morning!

If SSD involves a lot more percentage returns than other products, then it is troublesome. If it is just selling a lot more, and so there are more returns, but the percentage rate is the same as other products, then they will be happy, or at least AS happy with SSD as other products.

If it is so troublesome, they can always discontinue selling that line, and concentrate on products that are more worthwhile. However, only one retailer has posted on this issue and they said that they were happy with the level of problems, it being quite small.
manufacturer warrantees and guarantees are in addition to statutory rights. So you do still have consumer protections etc long after 90 days with SSD. Don't know what consumer protection is like in the USA
good point - although the other reason is that they might both be from the same batch
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