ANOTHER timing system

[Shebeen]

you are aware of these guys developing their own stuff down here in breezy cape town??

 

http://www.mobii.com/timing/

 

http://www.mobii.com/timing/images/systems/mobiicam/finish.jpg

[nigelhicks]

Ya i am aware of Mobii - but saw their prices for some of their stations and nearly died ...

I know Greville from Great Time uses their stuff - so will have a chat to Grev later today as he times our National Series events, so may have a local-is-lekker option that will work and is not too costly. 

 

Im basically just bouncing ideas around at the moment - just trying to get away from "handheld timing" with a dude in a bush with a laptop ... need to be more professional so am looking at options that can also allow us to venture into the wilderness and have stages where there may be no GPRS/WIFI or Cell signal etc.

[Grebel]

Ya i am aware of Mobii - but saw their prices for some of their stations and nearly died ...

I know Greville from Great Time uses their stuff - so will have a chat to Grev later today as he times our National Series events, so may have a local-is-lekker option that will work and is not too costly. 

 

Im basically just bouncing ideas around at the moment - just trying to get away from "handheld timing" with a dude in a bush with a laptop ... need to be more professional so am looking at options that can also allow us to venture into the wilderness and have stages where there may be no GPRS/WIFI or Cell signal etc.

 

I had a look at this a while ago. Spoke to a few people and explored the option of setting up a VPN but coverage was an issue. Cell phone based comms was out as well for the same reason. What we require is a start box and a finish line beam. The start and stop box would need to be powered and use GPS to obtain a time stamp. The start box would have either a wand or a beam to indicate a rider on course and the finish line beams would send a pulse for a finish time. You could incorporate an RFID chip to tie the riders ID to the finish time. Problem is that they would not be able to communicate unless you worked off the principle of timed gaps between riders and correlated the times at the end.

 

Everybody that I spoke to understands the concept but the trick is getting someone to actually build a prototype to see if it would work.....

 

I agree 100% with the handheld stop watch thing. There is no way in heck you can accurately time an event to 1/100th of a second with a hand held stop watch....

[KERMIT THE UBOAT]

Happy to purchase up until the R300 mark

Rentals at about the R30-R50 mark.

[patches]

I won't claim to know anything about electronics...

 

but there are plenty of smart hubbers/riders out there. Many electronic engineer types. Would it not be possible to brainstorm with such guys and girls and design a custom system that does things the way you want. Active, live times, etc. Surely with a bit of thinking and thingamajiggies and doodlehoppers from somewhere like RS Components, you can have your cake and eat it!

 

I'll speak to some of the C&I engineers here at work and see what they can suggest.

[RockCoach]

I know of two different guys developing timing systems. They even know each other well

[Pure Savage]

Problem is that I do not see it being a viable job for anybody to invest time into unless you time Argus, 94,7 etc. Will have to be a hobby. There are lots of amazing ideas and tech but you need a business to make it work.

[Shebeen]

thinking laterally, there's a more automated low budget option.

 

still uses cellphone signals, and needs a monitor at each point, but you could set this up tomorrow.

 

http://racesplitter.com/blog/2011/06/29/using-racesplitter-to-time-races-in-the-sport-of-trail-running

now if you could add a video system that could read the number boards as they pass then you're golden for automation. or a BT detection.

 

but ja, plenty ideas out there. My strategy would not be to reinvent the wheel, surely one of these could be modded to enduro purposes?

 

http://openracetimer.blogspot.com/

[Nofearnofun]

thinking laterally, there's a more automated low budget option.

 

still uses cellphone signals, and needs a monitor at each point, but you could set this up tomorrow.

 

http://racesplitter.com/blog/2011/06/29/using-racesplitter-to-time-races-in-the-sport-of-trail-running

now if you could add a video system that could read the number boards as they pass then you're golden for automation. or a BT detection.

 

but ja, plenty ideas out there. My strategy would not be to reinvent the wheel, surely one of these could be modded to enduro purposes?

 

http://openracetimer.blogspot.com/

 

The need for cellphone signal or an internet connection is a no go unfortunately.

[Shebeen]

The need for cellphone signal or an internet connection is a no go unfortunately.

ja, but lots of options for collection solutions..

 

 

getting the info back to base seems to be the issue.

VHF data would be able to handle it, very low amounts of info required to be transmitted

something like this could work.

 

http://www.rfdesign.co.za/pages/5645456/Products/VHF-Wireless-Products/NBFM-TX-RX-Modules.asp

 

http://www.rapidm.com/images/modules/TC4_MIL-STD-188-110B_NATO_STANAG_4539_19200_bps_9600_bps_2G_ALE_3G_ALE..jpg

[_im_from_earth]

Hey Nigel, I got another look at the timing system that they use for most of the enduro racing here. Its this one - http://www.sportident.com. The costs of that are built into our entries - you are issued with the tag at registration, and you must return it at the end to get a result. 

 

Contact Byron at www.fourfortymtbpark.co.nz to find out how the system rental works, costs etc. He used them at the enduro we had last weekend.

 

 

^^ Sportident is what the EWS is currently running, and although these active chips are costly you can use them at any Sportident event as the chip contains all of your data.

[Spoke101]

I would say R300-R500 depending on whether it's the contact or beam option and R50 to rent but then maybe build it into the entry fee.

[nigelhicks]

Ok so I have been scheming ...

 

For a DH timing system - if you have a standardised start time (1 minute interval) with syncronised clocks at the top and bottom of the hill. ...

Could one use an infrared beam system like you do on your electronic gate to register a time stamp to an Excel program on a laptop?

 

Basically I am thinking of the following an Excel program that has these columns

 

Number   Name   Start-Time    Finish-Time

 

So the first 3 are set manually as we know the set start time etc for the riders ...

Then when the rider comes down the hill and breaks the beam - a time stamp is recorded by Excel off the master clock (as a split time actually) that is then typed into the spreadsheet by the timing official.

 

Or if we get very fancy. The spreadsheet just continuously logs the timesstamps off the master clock into the Finish-Time column of the spreadsheet ..

 

Does anyone with any IT knowledge think this is possible???

[Barry Stuart]

Ok so I have been scheming ...

 

For a DH timing system - if you have a standardised start time (1 minute interval) with syncronised clocks at the top and bottom of the hill. ...

Could one use an infrared beam system like you do on your electronic gate to register a time stamp to an Excel program on a laptop?

 

Basically I am thinking of the following an Excel program that has these columns

 

Number Name Start-Time Finish-Time

 

So the first 3 are set manually as we know the set start time etc for the riders ...

Then when the rider comes down the hill and breaks the beam - a time stamp is recorded by Excel off the master clock (as a split time actually) that is then typed into the spreadsheet by the timing official.

 

Or if we get very fancy. The spreadsheet just continuously logs the timesstamps off the master clock into the Finish-Time column of the spreadsheet ..

 

Does anyone with any IT knowledge think this is possible???

I think something close to that should be. I'll chat to a developer for you. He's in Maritzburg and I've got his interest in DH piqued already.

[Stretch]

We need to have that beer Nige...with all that we have done there must be a way to prevent reinventing the wheel

[nigelhicks]

ok so i have found and dowmloaded a programme that does splits AND can create a time stamp directly to EXCEL! .....

 

And it also has the capability of having External source for the activation of the timestamp ...

 

So now i just need to see if we could use infrared gate sensors to do the timestamp trick ...???

 

http://www.xnotestopwatch.com/

 

 

http://www.xnotestopwatch.com/help/external_control.htm