[RichD]

You can't put that voltage regulator in the controller circuit, it has to be located between your regular power supply and everything else. With the modular system that plastic tracks use that is difficult. You can put diodes any place because they are passive, more like resistors. You need to be careful that you do not put diodes in a section of the wiring that is part of the brake circuit.

 

[RichD]

I was really hoping to avoid a full lecture with this thread. The wiring system that modern plastic tracks use make it easy for a beginner because he only has to plug everything in and he is ready to go. The disadvantage to modular systems is that it becomes much more difficult to add upgraded aftermarket power supplies and controllers. With the Scalextric Sport system the thing that plugs into the wall is a simple transformer with an AC output. The AC from the wallwart is converted to DC in the power base. The controllers are connected to the power base and there are no exposed wires to be tampered with. If you try to lower the track voltage by plugging the wallwart into an AC dimmer of some sort you could burn it out because some dimmers do not have a sine wave output. If the device that you want to use is DC then it has to be connected to the DC output of the power base, but ahead of the controllers. In order to do that you would have to open up the power base and do some surgery on it. If you have a complete regulated power supply you can connect that to the power base in place of the wallwart. The voltage output of the power supply would be higher than what you will get at the track because there is a voltage drop across the rectifiers in the power base. If the aftermarket power supply is good for more than a couple of amps the rectifiers in the power base could burn out if you run cars with powerful motors or had a short in the track. If you use a device that is simply a voltage regulator it would need to be connected to a plus and minus DC source, not in the controller circuit. The positive side of the power supply goes directly to the right hand hand track rails track rails looking in the direction of travel. The negative side of the power supply is connected to the controller circuit which includes the controller wiper and resistor and ends up at the left hand track rail for each lane.

 

[RichD]

It? Our tracks are wired like this.

Plastic tracks come wired this way.

If you had a DC voltage regulator the input side of it would be connected to plus and minus from the power supply and the output of the regulator would be connected to plus and minus as shown in both diagrams. A voltage regulator is an active device, it requires plus and minus connections to work. Diodes can be used to drop the voltage in 0.7 volt steps and those are passive, like resistors, so you can put them in series any place in the curcuit. The reason for putting them in the part of the circuit that goes to the controller resistor is because they would not also be in the brake circuit. Actually you could build the diodes into your controller.