Power for 20 year old Scalextric

[Alanx7]

I had rescued my Scalextric from my attic to build it for the forthcoming visit of my young grandson only to find there is no power?

The power supply does not appear to power the track & the red signal does not light up.

I have checked connections & they appear intact. Am I expecting too much for the power supply to work after this length of time?

 

[Andy P.]

Hi There,

It could be just the bulb as they were very tetchy...

You defintiely need an Volt-o-meter, sometimes called a Multi-meter that measures ohms and volts.

You can use to to test whether power is getting to the track or not and also whether he controllers still work or.

The device usually comes with 2 cables one marked positive (red) and one negative (usually black).

By holding the cables (they usually end in a metal point) to the + and - poles you should be able to tell if there is power or not.

You can then use the ohm-meter funtion to see if the controllers are working. This can be fiddly and is different depening on the controllers. Essentially though, you need to try to find 2 electrical contacts on the cables where the controllers plug into the track. Hold down the trigger and touch the contacts to see if there is an electrical connection or not. If the needle goes the wrong direction or there is no reading swap the pins of the device to see if you got + and - mixed up.

You can of course get adapter piece C8222 and connect a modern pwoer base (including ARC) to your older set or try to find a used powerbase that works.

[vimal_indrasoma]

I picked up a cheap 12V power supply (meant for powering LED strip lights) and hooked it up - seems to work very well. Make sure the power rating is sufficient for your kit./media/tinymce_upload/c0954f6a93d8511ec47ba3b7b228b461.jpg

[vimal_indrasoma]

I picked up a cheap 12V power supply (meant for powering LED strip lights) and hooked it up - seems to work very well. Make sure the power rating is sufficient for your kit.

You might want to enclose it in a box so little fingers don't get into places they shouldn't!

I also had to give the controller wipers, the cars and the track a few squirts of WD-40 to get them to work properly.