Fuel Strategy - for digital [Done V4.26]

I am aware that fuel strategy is not supported at the moment but any chance of this in the future?
Where throttle data is used to caculate this rather than time/laps and also a 'fuel gauge' of some sort to visually note tank 'volume'. IMHO this will create an element of strategy/realism in racing.

Regards
Pino

I have a lot of demand for fuel and real pitstop management, i will analyse it

Version 4.26 have now the fuel and pitstop management, more information at www.pclapcounter.com
As you can see on my web site this is a beta version, hope i will have some returns from people to make the final version.

Next developpement will be the pitstop detection with detector connected at the serial port

Great work.

Your system continues to improve in functionality and looks.

Fuel function is only available for SSD, I was hoping more along the lines of analogue racing, specifically using controllers of the Professor Motor type.
Any chance of this happening? Possible?

Cheers
Pino

ferrari wrote:

Great work.

Your system continues to improve in functionality and looks.

Fuel function is only available for SSD, I was hoping more along the lines of analogue racing, specifically using controllers of the Professor Motor type.
Any chance of this happening? Possible?

Cheers
Pino

Did you have a reference of controllers of the Professor Motor type ?

Ok I found, but you need to add a electronic systems to send the throttle information to the PC.
If you know somebody who can make that electronic and send the information to the serial port of Pc i can make Pc Lap Counter compatible with that systems but i think it will be hard to make that electronic !!!

Hi,

first I want to thank you for fixing the bug we recently discussed

Concerning the fuel strategy with SSD I have another suggestion how to initiate a pitstop:

When a car stops (zero throttle) and the brake and lane change button are pressed concurrently for more than a certain time (e.g. 3 seconds), pclapcounter should start to refuel the car as long as both buttons are pressed.

The short delay before start the refueling should prevent accidently refueling.

The big advantage of this solution would be, that there is no need for further hardware.

anderl

anderl1969 wrote:

Hi,

first I want to thank you for fixing the bug we recently discussed

Concerning the fuel strategy with SSD I have another suggestion how to initiate a pitstop:

When a car stops (zero throttle) and the brake and lane change button are pressed concurrently for more than a certain time (e.g. 3 seconds), pclapcounter should start to refuel the car as long as both buttons are pressed.

The short delay before start the refueling should prevent accidently refueling.

The big advantage of this solution would be, that there is no need for further hardware.

anderl

Good idea but in the documentation of Rich G i see that the SSD send 40 for lane change and 80 for brake.
What happend when both buttons are pressed ?
Maybe i can only check the brake button , if brake button pressed more than 3 seconds i generate a pitstop , ok for you ?

Of course is this ok for me. This would be really great.

anderl

anderl1969 wrote:

Of course is this ok for me. This would be really great.

anderl

I modify my program, it generate a pitstop when 'LANE CHANGE' button is pressed more than 3 sec.
You can re-download Pc Lap Counter 4.26 beta at www.pclapcounter.com or just click on this link http://users.skynet.be/bk274532/Pc_Lap_counter_beta.exe

I add options in the ssd interface of Pc lap Counter, like here:




Hope you will send me some return

Jesus, you're quick

I'll test it as soon as possible, but it could take a little time, because the SSD track belongs to my brother. I'm not sure if we come together during the week, but I try to test it as soon as possible. And of course I let you know how it worked.

Thanks a lot.

anderl

Hello

Ive been testing the pit stop 4.26beta 2 on the ssd format[10seconds pit stop]..
i think there is an error i.e.
on the pit stop the sequence shown under car pics is pit stop then go time lapse of 2 seconds only then car shown after 10 seconds.

i think it should be pit stop then 10seconds lapse then go.

Hope this makes sense

thanks
vh

vh wrote:

Hello

Ive been testing the pit stop 4.26beta 2 on the ssd format[10seconds pit stop]..
i think there is an error i.e.
on the pit stop the sequence shown under car pics is pit stop then go time lapse of 2 seconds only then car shown after 10 seconds.

i think it should be pit stop then 10seconds lapse then go.

Hope this makes sense

thanks
vh

Thank for testing, but i don't understand very well what you say:
You have used automatic pitstop ?
In that case the program will show the pitstop picture, refueling the car during 10 seconds and after will show car picture.
During the refueling if the tank is full the program show the 'go' picture but will always show the car picture after 10 seconds.

Hi Guy

yes i have used auto pitstop.
yes i understand tank full then go shows.
but if you proceed when go shows the current lap is not counted.
only if you stop for 10 seconds it is counted[then car shows].
perhaps it would be better to show fuel tank picture when full.
then at 10 seconds lapse the go sign is shown.
and after that the car picture is shown.

sorry does the above explain it better?

vh

Ok now i understand, i will fix that bug.

Hello again

Thank you .
by the way its a brilliant lap counter. we are getting so much more enjoyment with ssd thanks again

vh

Hi,

I visited my brother today and we did some testing with the beta3 from the 1st April.

First of all we discovered a bug, which was not there in the beta1. A car with ID 3 (on a Scalextric Sport Digital) let the program crash always it finished its first lap.



The race settings we used were these:



The bug had nothing to do with the fuel management, because it was still there even if we turned the fuel management off.

Cars with ID 1 or 2 didn't cause any trouble.


The feature we actualy wanted to test was the pitstop, generated by pressing the lane change button for more than 3 seconds. Unfortunately we have to say, it didn't worked at all. It didn't matter how long we pressed the button, the pitstop was not generated.

anderl

ok the bug is fixed, you can download Pc lap Counter 4.26 Beta 4 at www.pclapcounter.com
For the pitstop with lane change button, when you press the lane button did you see 'LC' in the hand controller window of the Scalextric Digital Sport interface of Pc Lap Counter ?, like here:



When the LC reach 1920 the interface send pitstop to pc lap counter, when you press lane button for 3 seconds did you reach that value ?

Maybe you can try with beta 4 because i made a little correction in the SSD interface.

Guy

Thanks for fixing the bug so quickly. I just download the beta4.

If the handcontroller window displayed the "LC", I don't know because I didn't pay attention to this.

I'll test this with the new beta4 in a few days.

anderl

Hi Guy,

Can you work the refueling this way:

To 'pit in' you press the 'brake' button for >3seconds. 'Pit out' (and refueling stops) when the throttle is applied. I ask for several reasons:

1. To stop cheating - it's possible to drive around the track whilst holding down the lane change button (sure, you'll be swapping lanes, but you don't need to physically 'pit') At least with the brake/ throttle method, you HAVE to stop to begin refueling, and you must remain stationary to refuel, because if you simply drive off, the system detects throttle input and stops refueling.

2. So I can use the new Scalextric pit lane. If I understand the webcam detection app, you would need a different pit lane for every car, since one long pit lane would trigger multiple sensor areas. With my proposed method, a car must pull into the pit lane since it has to be stationary to complete the brake/ wait/ throttle sequence.

3. Some drivers hold their lane change button down between track segments to ensure they change lane at the next opportunity. This would trigger 'false' pit start/ stop requests.

If you could implement the brake/ wait/ throttle sequence - it would be so cool.

Guy - you are the saviour of SSD. PC Lap Counter is worth every penny! Thanks for integrating SSD into your app.

Cheers

Jude

judesudbury wrote:

Hi Guy,

Can you work the refueling this way:

To 'pit in' you press the 'brake' button for >3seconds. 'Pit out' (and refueling stops) when the throttle is applied. I ask for several reasons:

1. To stop cheating - it's possible to drive around the track whilst holding down the lane change button (sure, you'll be swapping lanes, but you don't need to physically 'pit') At least with the brake/ throttle method, you HAVE to stop to begin refueling, and you must remain stationary to refuel, because if you simply drive off, the system detects throttle input and stops refueling.

2. So I can use the new Scalextric pit lane. If I understand the webcam detection app, you would need a different pit lane for every car, since one long pit lane would trigger multiple sensor areas. With my proposed method, a car must pull into the pit lane since it has to be stationary to complete the brake/ wait/ throttle sequence.

3. Some drivers hold their lane change button down between track segments to ensure they change lane at the next opportunity. This would trigger 'false' pit start/ stop requests.

If you could implement the brake/ wait/ throttle sequence - it would be so cool.

Guy - you are the saviour of SSD. PC Lap Counter is worth every penny! Thanks for integrating SSD into your app.

Cheers

Jude

Ok i will add a option to ask a pitstop by pressing the brake button probably this weekend

awesome! and pit stop end occurs on first throttle press after Pit In? Just thinking, Rich G pointed out that some older throttles exhibit 'creep', so it might be sensible to program pit out when throttle value exceeds something greater than the minimum value.

I really think this would work well.

Pc Lap Counter 4.26 Beta 5 available at www.pclapcounter.com, here is some print screen :





Using the brake button: the pitstop will be generated when the SSD Hand Controller show 3840 in the brake column.
Using the lane change button : the pitstop will be generated when the SSD Hand Controller show 1920 in the lane change column.

Hi,

today we tested the beta5 at my brother. The SSD fuel management works fine except two issues:

1) The next lap after a pitstop is NOT counted!
At the moment we have no pitlane, so we make our pitstop right on the normal track. So for we never miss the finish line and so for we have the option "Add a lap after a pit stop" turned OFF. In my understanding, these option should be used when the pitlane bypasses the finish line. However, PClapcounter doesn't count the next lap after a pitstop, which is a bug in my understanding.

2) Unfortunately the button recognition to initiate a pitstop only works when the "dynamic braking option" of SSD is turned off. Dynamic braking means, that the cars brake when there is zero throttle. These mode is our default mode, because it's rather hard to brake by button and change laps at the same time.
If dynamic braking is turned on, PClapcounter doesn't recognise the LC button at all. The brake button is recognised, but it doesn't work, because all the time, when there is zero throttle, PClapcounter also thinks that the brake button is pressed. And this is already at start of the race during the countdown. But it will be also a problem during race, when you deslot. Normal behaviour would be to release the throttle and PClapcounter initiate a pitstop then.

I have no idea if you can distinguish between a pressed brake button and a brake signal initiated through the dynamic brake option.

But I strongly believe that it must be possible to recognize the LC button even if a brake signal is sent at the same time.

anderl

Hi Anderl1969, we use button braking only. I can see how dynamic braking would totally interfere with the PIT IN/ OUT sequence. But, braking while lane changing is possible, try operating the throttle with your right hand (assuming you're right handed) whilst covering the LC button with your left index finger and brake button with your right middle finger. While racing, I find you just have to tap the brake to slow the car enough. Also, I'll hold the LC button down in between LC segments (assuming I want to change lanes) which allows me to concentrate on braking at the correct moment (without having to think about braking AND changing lanes). Everybody at our club has adopted this teqnique now. I'll test BETA 5 tonight.