# Tomy/afx Wall Warts



## hbfatty (Dec 7, 2009)

I have a Tomy International race set. Good quality pretty much all around. I have a great two lane layout(big basement)with 2 banked curves. The set came with two wall transformers and I was told that inserting the second power track strip half way through the course would help distribute the power! ie: keep the power up to snuff on the back stretch. Is this true? I can't see where this would help, but, if it does, I will pop it in. I run a BSRT magnet car and I can barely keep my eyes on it. Any advice or tips would be greatly appreciated. I raced hard in the mid 60's until I started having children(all girls) so I did R/C for a while then started keeping a "full time" eye on my good looking daughters. Now I have 3 grandsons and they are so good at it I am jealous!!!! Back in the day my brother would do the arm rewinding and I would do the building. We were hard to beat. A long time has passed and my grandsons are having a ball. I guess I have a few new things to learn. I love it,but, the second transformer concept seems as though it would do nothing. Correct?????


----------



## resinmonger (Mar 5, 2008)

Yes, extra power taps do improve power flow around the sectional track. Every joint between sections introduces some resistance and a drop of current. Some people us a rule of thumb of a tap every 15 sections.


----------



## NTxSlotCars (May 27, 2008)

Just a thought, but, how would another terminal track, with the wall wart add power to the track without another controller?


----------



## SwamperGene (Dec 1, 2003)

It wouldn't do anything on it's own. You could use the second power track to isolate the lanes, which would mean one waal-wart and controller on each power section. You would also have to cut the commons on the bottom to islolate them.

Power _taps_, in the sense that resinmonger is suggesting, is a whole 'nuther ball o' wax and a huge benefit.


----------



## slotnewbie69 (Dec 3, 2008)

if you have any soldering experience,on a small layout one powertap is sometimes sufficient.there is tons of info here,which has encourauged me to learn all i can.what i did though, was simply take a straight strack, halfway through the layout, and solder two 16 guage wires to the bottom side of the rails where they are exposed,and then i wrapped the other bare ends around the tounges on the bottom of the power track to send controlled current to the soldered piece of track.voila!no power drop at the furthest point in the layout from the powered track!this can be done with each lane.if you isolate power to each lane,by snipping power to the lane you want to eliminate,and attaching the powertaps as described above.it takes some soldering skills,and some initiative,but will greatly improve power flow.these guys here know all about this,but i thought i might put in my 2 cents anyways!good luck,and welcome back to the hobby!


----------



## demether (Aug 26, 2008)

Having one tranformer by lane is a great improvement too. If a car goes out of the road, there is no interaction with the other lanes power. 

Personaly, I use one single 14volt 8amp power supply (labs power supply, used for home radio for example). Since I've got a lot of amps, it's suficient for a 4 lanes track (since I don't run high specs magnet cars)

My track is about 13 or 14 meters : I use 3 power taps. :thumbsup:


----------



## hbfatty (Dec 7, 2009)

Ithink I will try slotnewbie69's approach unless someone says "no!" My concern was that of NTxSlotCar's: Without a controller how could this work? Since, at about the half way mark of the track, the lanes come fairly close together, I should have no trouble doing that with only about 2 or 3 feet of wire. I can't believe the et's and top speeds of these little rockets. Steve G's track is 17.5 feet long and has et's lower than .2/10 of a second. They go about 120mph(actual speed, not scale speed! 50 years ago, when I got started in this crazy hobby, HO scale drag et's were about 1.5 seconds. Now they are 1/10th of that. Does anyone know what the records are for 1/24 and 1/32? When I started back again a year ago I thought that nothing had changed......WOW, was I wrong!!!!! Thanks to all you pros who offered a lot of great advice. I will keep you posted as to my progress!!


----------

