Floor Notes: Need Some Space

 We're about ready to get into the winter holidays, and I'm making my plan for how to make the most of it. I have some ideas, just trying to decide which direction to go. 

First, I need to free up some space. I took two more loads [the last two] from the house and now I need to sort and re-store that stuff here. I have a basement room dedicated to just that sort of thing. I also need to get my drums to a practice room. In fact, all my musical gear needs a place to go. 

Then, there's the matter of which direction I want to travel in. Do I:

1. Buy the latest crop of new cars

2. Buy the track pieces I have been looking at [large radius curves, another overpass, analog lap counter]

3. Buy the power supply I've always been talking about getting

So let's break those down. Number 1 is definitely the easiest, most fun of the options. I'm at 21 cars now or something like that, so I don't know if I particularly need any new ones. I might go with one of the other options and include a car or two to satiate that thirst. I have no cars in mind at the present, except for the 917/10 from NSR. So I might be looking at NSR pretty heavily, unless Thunderslot has a new release this year, which they likely will.

Number 2 is really where I should be focusing. Every time I set up a layout I complain to myself about the lack of large radius track pieces. I've got it in my head to do some major straights replacement with flowing curves and more flowing track designs, and getting rid of as many 1/60 track pieces as I can. Plus, as I'm now experimenting with lap-over track layouts, I want to have another overpass so I have more flexibility. I really really like the overpass. I makes total sense to me now and is a real space-saver. I'm also leaning heavily on the analog lap counter. I want a better timing setup that my current one.  So between those three things, I can pretty much complete layout issues and devote my time to new layouts in my new apartment. 

Number 3 is tricky. I should have taken care of that long ago, when I first built my table. The 2018 track design gave me my first power trouble. I should have taken care of it then, but I instead did a design that was a little shorter. 

This track design took all the power I could muster. Racing two cars was a dicey proposition, and it was not uncommon for cars to strain for power.

So here's my solution: Power.

This post has been sitting for a couple of weeks while I did my research and decision making. It's going to cost me about 120euro for a 5A/0-30V supply and necessary cables. That'll still leave me room for some track pieces. I think I could drop 80 bucks or so on those and be fine. 

A couple of weeks ago I shopped around for another SCP-1 and had a hard time finding them at a good price. And since I had been having power issues, and not so much controller issues, it makes more sense to go with a power supply now and later add another SCP controller when needed. It's not that much more expensive to go with the PS over the SCP controller, but it would solve a lot of problems.