Faulty Power Bases

2840 Views 25 Replies 8 Participants Last post by Ghost, Jan 7, 2005

fladda

Discussion Starter · Jan 3, 2005

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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Ghost

· #21 · Jan 5, 2005

Quite right, and can we do much about that, right here?
Better to give a fix to the problem as such, as the one I offered.

/Erik

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SinclairZX81

· #22 · Jan 5, 2005

QUOTE (astro @ 4 Jan 2005, 16:19)Don't know what consumer protection is like in the USA
<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I think they give you the option to request lube before shafting you. Everything here is setup in favour of the mulit-billion dollar corporations that run the place.

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fladda

Discussion Starter · #23 · Jan 6, 2005

QUOTE (astro @ 3 Jan 2005, 22:54)did you have a standard power base in the track at the same time? (even if it wasnt plugged in?)
<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If a 'standard power base' is the old non-digital power base, then I can confirm that we didn't have one of these on the track (nor did we have one in the house!). We were just using a big track and a single digital power base.

I suspect that the key is that we were using two Scalextric 12VDC power supplies plugged into the power base ?? Perhaps the blown power bases are more likely to occur with multiple power supplies plugged in.

All the equipment was standard, as per the boxed sets. That's all we had., apart from a small amount of extra (digital) track.
Ralph

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CameronCool

· #24 · Jan 6, 2005

Hmmm. We have been running (non-stop some days) with 2 transformers plugged into the base and so far no issues or problems. But the fact that you blew 2 power bases with the same set-up raises the question whether there was some other extraneous factor causing this in your environment. Not saying there was, but blowing 2 in your environment does raise the question.

Just a thought not an accusation!

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astro

· #25 · Jan 6, 2005

good point - although the other reason is that they might both be from the same batch

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Ghost

· #26 · Jan 7, 2005

Hm... two in one, was the switch switched to that?

And if it was I'd say it's back to basics - two cars divide enough of the juice to not burn the diods; with one car it gets all juice - through that all to small 1A diod rectifier.

/Erik

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