K8000

Hello Guy,

I've put together a Velleman K8000 but I cannot get any detection.
The Infrared phototransistors have been connected to the I/O 1 ,2 ,3 ,4, setup as input channels (IC's mounted on input rail).

I have followed the manual as best I could understand. A screen shot of the settings could help me.

Cheers
Pino

Hello,

Here is a print screen of the K8000 interface of Pc Lap Counter:



For windows XP you need to install port95nt

Also on this site http://www.velleman.be/ot/en/download/files/ you can download software to test you k8000.

Thanks,

Have setup exactly the same way & also installed the port 95nt. Have also run the test programme. When testing OUTPUT, I get the red LED's flashing, when I run the INPUT test nothing happens.

Any other suggestions?

I think there is a problem on your K8000, because normaly the test program must work.
My knoweldge in electronics is very basic, sorry i have no suggestion for you

Hello again,

Card inputs are working fine. I did not realize I needed to provide power to the inputs to work, I thought the card would have provided this voltage.

Anyway, this has confused me further. I have setup I/O channels 1, 2, 3, 4 as inputs on the board (IC’S on the IN side).

How could I connect the infrared LED detectors with this setup?
I would also like to take advantage of your power control option, which is the reason I chose to go the Velleman way.

Any help appreciated.


Pino

Sorry i can't help you , maybe you can post here http://groups.yahoo.com/group/k8000/
This is a special forum for the K8000

Hi Guy,

An update regarding K8000: Cannot get it to work.

Thankyou for the link, I posted the question but no one until today has come up with a solution. Would be intersting to know if anybody has sucessfully used K800

Anyway, have moved on to the Dentronics relay card and it works a treat . Cheaper and easier to use

However, I would like some help in getting "False start detection" to work.

PS: My track is a 4 laner

Regards and Thankyou

Pino

What happend when you set the False start detection option:
before starting the race Pc Lap Counter will put track power ON.
When you start the race , Pc Lap Counter will start the countdown and in that case the countdown is ramdom.
If a driver start his car before the countdown is finish Pc lap Counter will cut the power for the driver for 10 seconds (you can change that value in the race setting, field 'pitstop length' )

when false start detection is activated in programme (ticked box), power is available to track during countdown. So far so good.
When making a false start (before countdown finishes), nothing happens. Car is allowed to continue without giving 10 second penalty.

However, just to confirm: When false start box is NOT ticked, no power is available to anyone until countdown is finished.

Yes i confirm without false start detection no power until countdown is finished.
I made a test for false start detection and power is OFF for 10s when a car start before countdown is finished, so maybe your setting is not good
What did you use for detecting the car, K8000 ?
Did you use also dontronics for power control ?

REM:
i'am not sure that K8000 and dontronics work together

Quote :

made a test for false start detection and power is OFF for 10s when a car start before countdown is finished, so maybe your setting is not good

Maybe a screen shot of how the setting should be would help. Have read the manual, obviously something minor in setup i have missed.

Power control is done by Dontronics only.
However i will get into contact with BSC and hope they will advise me on how to wire up K800 for detection & power control.

Thanks.

Ferrari,

Do you still need help with the K8000? The card has opto-isolators on all inputs and outputs, which makes it far more complicated and expensive than it needs to be. Post details of the sensors and power relays you are using if you are still having trouble.

Hello Richard and thanks for the offer.

Quote :

complicated and expensive

YES. Seemed like a less complicated alternative at the time.
When reading the specs of the card, I thought that power to activate relays could be taken directly from K8000 itself, and sensors could be easily connected to the inputs, and the setup in PC lap counter seemed very straightforward in assigning the port function. However it has not been as straight forward as this.

At the moment I’m running the Dontronics unit with a custom cable to connect the 4 Infrared 5mm photo LED sensors. Much cheaper alternative but still have a k8000 card sitting here.

I have followed Guy’s link to a K8000 forum, which came up with this wiring setup to no success and haven’t heard back from BSC. http://rmcybernetics.wmguild.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15


Cheers

Pino

Ferrari,

The diagram takes no account of the characteristics of the photo device, so you would be very lucky if it worked. If you want to connect a photo transistor to the Velleman board, it would be easier to connect it directly to the TDA8574A input, using a suitable load resistor. Do you have a part number for the i/r sensors you are using? Are they looking across the slot, or are they facing up and lit from a gantry?

If you want to operate mechanical relays from the Velleman, you will need an interface chip such as the ULN2803. Solid state relays could be operated directly, but they are expensive and you can then only use the track if the Velleman board is connected.

Richard,

I’m not up to speed with electronics that require more than electrical knowledge, so excuse my ignorance (interface chips).
http://www.jaycar.com.au/ Part Cat.No=ZD1950 And IR light source from above.

TDA8574A input. Is this an analogue input? And your general thoughts overall (price aside) if K8000 is of any benefit over this system:
http://www.oceancontrols.com.au/controllers/parallel_relay_k074.htm
I have read somewhere that K8000 is of slower performance than direct cable connection of the second system?

Sorry, I meant PCF8574A, which is the 8 bit chip used for the digital inputs and outputs on the Velleman. My memory is hopeless.

The phototransistor will not be able to operate the normal Velleman input without some sort of buffer to help, unless you modify the Velleman card so you can connect directly to the PCF8574A chip. Unless you know what you are doing, I would say use a buffer.

The first thing to do is get a useable output from the sensor. If you are using a 5v supply, connect the sensor e to 0v (ground) and connect the c terminal via a 33k resistor to 5v. Use a digital voltmeter on the c terminal and adjust the value of the resistor until you get about .2v when the sensor is lit and near 5v when a car passes. The actual value of the resistor will depend on how far away the i/r led is and how powerful it is.

To interface this with the Velleman board, use a 74LS05 chip. Connect the c of the sensors to the inputs of the chip and the outputs to the -ve input of the velleman board. Connect the +ve Velleman inputs to 5v.

Than set up the inputs in Guy's software to suit.

It doesn't look as if your alternative relay board will deal with the sensors, but parallel can usually be faster than serial if using the same port. The Velleman uses a simplified I2C system with the speed pushed to the limit. I'd be interested to know if speed is a problem with up to 8 lanes. When I made a 16 lane system which, to Guy's software, looked like 3 Velleman cards, I added pulse stretching to the inputs in case the software had trouble reading the inputs fast enough. Whether this was necessary, I don't know.

Ok, so no immediate benefit for a 4 lane circuit using K8000, besides an electronic challenge

Quote :

It doesn't look as if your alternative relay board will deal with the sensors

Creating a custom cable where sensors are wired directly to positive pins: for e.g. 10, 11, 12, 13 and ground, and assigning these pins to lane 1, 2, 3, 4. The remaining pins can then be setup to power the relays for power and lights control within PC Lap counter using the LPT1 setup option?

Yes - for 4 lanes it would be easier just to use the LPT pins.

help but k8000 interface at http://www.scalinet.com