Yes this is a pretty good way to think about it as tracks, or signals that are each processed separately. If you want to further understand what each of the components is doing in this circuit, I recommend http://en.wikipedia.org/ as an excellent source. Here is how the rectifier turns the AC in DC: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rectifier The device in the schematics you are looking at that has the squigly connections and the plus and minus outputs is a full-wave rectifier. It take an alternating current that has no net force in any particular direction and converts it into a pulsing positive current with a net forward or positive direction. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rectifier#Full-wave_rectification You can think of AC current as a force pushing and pulling a boat that is sitting the water. Whereas the full-wave rectified DC current is a force pushing a boat in pulses such that the end result is that the boat moves forward. But since the boat is receiving pulses of full-wave rectified DC, it also pulses forward with lots of starts and stops. We need to smooth these pulses by taking a bit of the strong part of the pulse and filling in the stops. Since capacitors store up charge and release it this is where they come into play. The capacitors in the circuit are smoothing out the pulse in this full-wave rectified DC current, so that the regulator will receive a steady flow. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor The capacitors in that circuit are in parallel which means that they add together to form one big capacitor. They both have voltage ratings that ensure that they will be less likely to blow up giving the voltages that they will see. If you were to hook up an oscilloscope to the outputs of the capacitors, you will see voltage flows in almost steady DC, but with minor ripples in it. This is where the regulator comes in. Then you have the regulators making sure that what comes out is the DC voltage that you wanted. It removed the ripples. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltage_regulator In some ways a regulator can also be thought of as a protector. It can shut down if it sees too much current draw at its output, or blow out if it sees too much voltage at its input. This might not actually "protect" anything else in your circuit, but I have doubt that things could get much worse if it wasn't there in the first place. Hope that helps a bit.