OK so I'm curious. What kind of voltage did standard 1/32 home sets of the '60s (Revell, AMT, Strombecker, Scalextric, Eldon, anyone else?) run? I've seen Eldon power packs in 3v and I think 6v, but I suspect the 3v ones were toy-type stuff. What kind of amperage backed them up?

Next question: What kind of voltage did commercial slot-car tracks run back then (or now, I guess) when you went to rent time on a big 8-lane track? You could run 1/32 OR 1/24 on them, right?

Finally, what voltage do modern Scaley and Carrera and Fly and Ninco home set cars run on?

Here's what I'm getting at: If I pick up some vintage Eldon junk and beat it into running shape and set up a dinky little layout in the basement, what kind of voltage should I run, and how much amperage do I want to back it up to keep two cars running smoothly at once? Can the same vintage cars be run on someone else's new Carrera home track or on a commercial track, or will I end up with a face full of armature windings from trying to put too much voltage through a motor not designed for it?

I rigged an Artin 1/43 power supply to the old Eldon track I posted about previously. The rating on it said 7.5V, 800mA. It got the old Eldons and some new Artins around the track just fine, but it barely turned the wheels of the 1/32 Parma Womps and the old 1/24 hardbody Cadillac enduro car I have laying around here. I'm assuming that was more a function of the paltry amperage rating than the voltage...

And on a related note... What's the slot depth of modern 1/32 home track, old 1/32 home track from someone like Revell or Scalextric, and commercial large-scale track? The Eldon stuff seems REALLY shallow...

any insight would be greatly appreciated...

--rick

OK, I think I half answered my own question. Poking around on SCI, I found a couple old discussions of 1/32 voltage... according to Philippe de Lespinay, who is a slot car historian, all large-scale home sets till 1970 used 12vdc... EXCEPT Eldon, which used 6v, and even 3v on some early sets. Another racer posted that they have been successfully running Eldon cars on 12v and more since the 60s, and only experienced one failed motor...

Another post mentioned that Eldon had about the shallowest slot of all the home sets of the 60s...

--rick

Most of the vintage sets had 12 volts and about 1 amp for two cars. Eldon and some others had lower voltage. The vintage cars by Monogram, Cox, etc do not run very well on less than 12 volts. I have found many new cars run fine on 9 volts and sometimes even less. The Eldon cars will run fine on 12 volts. The current race sets by Scalextric, Carrera, Ninco and SCX are 15 to 17 volts but do not have much amperage.

Eldon and Scalextric Classic & SCX track have a rather shallow slot.

It's really a shame that nobody got together and agreed upon making all of these tracks work together (like the model rail roaders).