Electric issues in Scally track, help!

[Dundee Denny]

Electrical mystery. WARNING no mechanical sense at all by the creator of this post!!!

have scalley sport and classic co-mingled over 120 feet

have several jumpers to get track to the far reaches that just connect to a piece of track next to the scalley standard power track

recently, one of both tracks would just lose power, very random

didnt see any lose joints and ran a magnet stick over all the lines and found no stray staples etc



the power track is 12 years old so I bought new power track with controllers

after 3 hours back to working or not working, one lane or both lanes not working

cars won’t even work on the new dedicated power source piece of track of either lane at times.

simple ideas or thoughts?

complexed in Dundee!!

[drvanski]

The simplest way to troubleshoot plastic track is to disconnect the last piece of track before the power base. Then, drive a car around the track and it will stop at any bad track joints.

[chappyman66]

Hey Denny.....sounds like an intermittent.....are you sure DaBoyz didn't leave an arc welder laying around???

Are you using a car or a multimeter to check?
Stupid question, but if you are using a car did you make sure the braid are clean? Picking up the dust bunnies will make intermittents.....also a loose lead wire.

[Dundee Denny]

will try taking the last piece off and see what happens

Never a dumb question, yep tried several cars

appreciate all thoughts!!!

very puzzling and frustrating!!!

[docdoom]

using same power supply? is it hard wired to the track of banana plug?

[Dundee Denny]

New out of the box scally sport system with wall plug and their new banana clips every thing totally fresh

[RichD]

It can be difficult to fix problems of this sort over the Internet. When we still ran on plastic tracks there were often problems with poor connections. If you are testing the track using a car rather than a meter make sure that the car is working properly. Touch a 9 volt battery to the car's braids to be certain that it is working. Once in a while the commutator in a motor may short out, it will draw a lot of amps, but will run slowly or not at all. If you put a car with that problem on the track it would run slowly, but in addition there is a circuit in the powerbase that will likely shut off the power completely. You did not say if you had tried several cars.
If you had a multimeter you could check the voltage right at the powerbase with the trigger of the controller pulled all the way. If you do not have one I suggest that you get a multimeter, a cheap one is all that you need, Harbor Freight gives them away from time to time. If there is no voltage at the powerbase the controller could be the problem, but you tried new controllers. If you are still using set controllers those are known to fail eventually. If that is the case you might attempt a repair, but you would be better off in the long run buying aftermarket controllers. Usually set type power supplies have two parts, there is a wallwart that drops down from the line level AC to some lower AC voltage. That connects to the powerbase that contains the rectifiers that convert the AC current to DC. Either the wallwart or the powerbase could be defective. You have tried several powerbases, but the problem persists making it unlikely that either thing is defective. I was thinking that you might have a short across the rails someplace, but you indicated that you checked for that. It would actually be better to check using a meter, if the rails were shorted the power supply would burn out unless the a protective circuit shut it off.
It is likely that your track has a number of poor connections. The method that drvanski suggested would be your best bet if you do not have a multimeter. You should disconnect the jumpers before you do more troubleshooting. Possibly there are a number of partial connections, those are harder to detect by running a car around, an open connection would be obvious. You will need to correct each bad connection before you move on.
In any case let us know how you make out.

[Fathead59]

Not sure if this is the right forum , and if it isn't please place in the right one . My question is in the same vein , I was thinking of using a different power supply , which would be adjustable , a type of power supple that would be used with a tire razor , instead of the wall wart . Just not sure if it would be possible .

[Fathead59]

And the type of track would be Scaletrix Sport

[RichD]

Check out this article: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1r_m...ew?usp=sharing
To run a tire truer a power supply that is good for 5 amps might be best and be sure to pick a variable voltage supply that can be turned down low enough. The Pyramid power supplies are nice, but they only go down to 6 volts.

[Fathead59]

Thanks for the info Rich . I am trying to get as much info for what I want to do . I have a dedicated power supply for my tire razor , but I am trying get as much info for a dedicated power supply for the track . Which is to be able to lower the speed on the track for my grandson . This way he can get use to running the car without wiping out all the time . And like I mentioned before , just trying to get as much info as I can to see if what I am thinking to do will work before I start cutting wires and things .