New Drag Race Feature Start Question

First off, thank you for this feature, our track is scheduled to open in July of 2008 with two 1/4 mile drag strips, an oval and a road course, we are using PCLC for our oval and soon for our road course as well.

I was elated to see it now has a drag race feature. I have been working with it all day and have a couple of questions, possible changes.

One: The delay after the start lights, I have wired in a LED tree so to speak using the third, second and first light along with the go light. This replicates a drag race tree, when the count down is set to 3 seconds, the tree works great, the top row, middle row and bottom row light up, then the green light lights up, HOWEVER, the delay that comes after that makes this sequence od at best. As the driver sees a green external light, but has to wait for the delay and on screen light box to disapear or else they get a false start. How can we eliminate that random delay sequence ?

SECOND: With the drag feature, the car lines up covering the photo cell, when it leaves the photo cell, it counts the reaction time, that is good, then when it gets to the end, it gets the elapsed time and mph.
THE PROBLEM IS: Unless you are the winner, the second lane only has the reaction time displayed and nothing else. There time and miles per hour do not display as the race has ended and the software shuts down.

This is a great addition to the PCLC software, however a few things to make it more realistic in the actual drag racing application are needed to be actually used for home and hopefully our commercial track here soon.

Thank you and I look forward to your reply !

Shawn
SlotCar Mania
Westland, MI. USA

Thanks for your report,
concerning point one : for Drag racing mode i will delete the random delay in the countdown procedure
Concerning second point: it's a bug, i will fix the bug as soon as possible.

The software really is great !

Will we be expecting a new release version, or will it be taken out of this release and we just have to re-down load it ? How will we know ?

One other thing in the drag race mode. False start detection is supposed to signal the red light on the appropriate side of the starting lights to indicate a false start. We don't have this function on the drag race mode yet. So, I was wondering if that can be incorporated when removing the delay and fixing the drivers stats bug as wel ?

Thank you again for your prompt attention to this matter as we are working on wiring the track to support the PCLC software now that the drag race mode has been added.

Shawn
Slot Car Mania
Westland. Michigan.
Opening July 2008

When the new version will be available you will know it because at that moment i will post here
Installation of a new version is like all version: just download and install

Actualy i work on version 4.48c to fix the bug and also remove the random delay, hope to release version 4.48 next week.
About "false start detection and red light on the appproriate side of the starting lights...": i need more time to implement that feature...hope to make it in june.

Thank you,

I look forward to the new release as we have completed our tracks and are assembling the trees now. Next week, I will download the new version and get my track up and running with it, then I will purchase the second license for the second track once it is tested with the first track.

How about the drivers stats at the end of the race ? Any luck with that ?

Shawn
Slot Car Mania
Westland, MI
Opening July 2008

Here is version 4.48c : http://www.pclapcounter.be/Pc_Lap_counter_448c.exe

I made 2 corrections:
- Fix the bug
- for Drag racing mode i delete the random delay in the countdown procedure

About stat, reaction time is displayed in the "Driver classement report" , in the future reaction time will be displayed in stat window with a graph.

Thank you !

I will download that today and test it with the new drag tree's we built last week. I will report my findings !

Thank you again as I look forward to using this software on ALL our tracks.


Shawn
SlotCar-Mania
Westland, MI
Opening July 2008

We've been quietly testing these features in the background... Lookin Good so Far! Thanks Guy!

Thank you Guy,

The new release of the beta C version works great ! The delay is gone, with the optic sensors the software is flawless, the reaction time is right on, the countdown works and the driver stats are displayed after each race. Thank you !

I have a couple things I know you are working on for the drag race mode, but I wanted to check in and see when they would be completed as we are coming up on opening day.

One: Is there anything that can be added for pre-stage and stage lights for the software. Meaning when a car goes through the staging sequence, it lights up external lights or on screen lights.

Second: The false start sequence, when a racer jumps the light, on other software, the RED light on that lane lights up and the driver is dis-qualified. Currently we have a false start noted in the start sequence, but no lights, or disqualify lights or sounds.

Thank you again and everything else is exciting and I am almost ready to go with it. I am trying to figure out how to make my pre-stage and stage lights work on the trees, along with what to do with false starts, that is why I am posting.

Shawn
SlotCar-Mania
Westland, Michigan
Opening July 2008

Stage and PreStage lights are something that doesn't have to be handled by the software. It can be handled by optical sensors and solid state relays. We will be working on this once all the lights are working from the software.

I am working on hooking up my tree's now and I read your comments about the pre-stage and stage lights.

I have made a seperate circuit if you will for the sensors and lights on the trees for pre-stage and stage. Taking a mouse apart, I then hooked a switch into each tracks main control board, that when everyone is staged, a driver hits the switch starting the software. That seems to work very well in my testing yesterday.

The only thing left to complete is the false start lights and this will be a great software indeed to use for all our tracks. It is nice to have a once stop shop for any track your business has.

Keep me posted on the developments of the false start lights as we are nearing our opening, and Thank you again !

Shawn
SlotCar-Mania
Westland, MI
Opening July 2008

Please, take a picture of your setup and share it with us, I'm about to build the same for our store and it's always good to see what others have done!

I will have some pictures coming as we just packed everything up to get ready to take it to the new building.

Once I have the start area un-packed and ready to set up, I will flip it over and take some shots for you.

I am hoping the false start issue can be dealt with here shortly as it is the only issue that needs finishing to have completed tracks.

Thank you again Mainlinhobby for your interest and I will surely share whatever I can to help you guys out.

Shawn
SlotCar-Mania
Westland, Michigan
Opening July 2008

Hello,

Light up a light per lane is actualy not implemented, before implementing that feature i need to make more analyse because i want to implement other stuff like light up a light for record lap , best lap, first place....

While waiting there is a workaround:
Just use power control feature and untick the general option "my system send PIT IN Signal":
when Pc Lap Counter detect a false start the software will activate the lane output IO to cut the power, this will activate a relay...behind the relay you can connect a light
Even you already use lane power feature it should work, just connect a light to the relay.

NEVER THOUGHT OF THAT!!!! THAT WILL WILL WORK GREAT!!!

Thank you Guy,

I will get the tree and test that. I can't test it on my sensors as I have the track packed, but I can use the keyboard options on the software to test the false start work around.

Thank you again, I will report my findings and hopefully soon post some pictures.

Shawn
SlotCar-Mania
Westland, Michigan
Opening July 2008

I have implemented lights up light for false start and more..., more information here:
https://pclapcounter.forumotion.com/pc-lap-counter-install-update-beta-f6/beta-pc-lap-counter-449-available-t442.htm

Thank you Guy,

I have time this weekend as we are testing the track. I do not have a figit board, I will download the new version and test that as well. Thank you again for your time making this an all round fantastic software.

I have enjoyed the new additions thus far.

I will report my test findings. I was able to get the false start lights working with the lane power relays as reported earlier.

Shawn
SlotCar-Mania
Westland, MI
Opening July 2008

Hello. I wanted to post pictures of our drag race control boards, but I wanted to check in with what you were looking or in particular.

Please let me know and I will get those posted for you.

Shawn
SlotCar-Mania
Westland, Michigan
Opening July 2008

We were interested in not only the control boards, but also the drag track setup. We are about to build ours using stainless steal magnetic L channel for the rails. Were also about to build the dynamic breaking function into the slow down area. That will be a lot of testing and tweaking!

Forgive me if I am wrong, but stainless steel has NO magnetic tendencies. Wouldn't building the channel out of stainless be a hap hazzard expense since no traction gain would come of it ?

We are live testing the trees today with all the 'u' sensors installed in the track, all the power blocks installed and the relay board hooked up. My pictures will follow our successful testing with all these components and the software working later today.

Shawn
SlotCar-Mania
Westland, Michigan
Opening July 2008

We thought that too, but we just took a slot car magnet to it and it stuck... HARD

Guy, question...

Is it possible to have PC Lap Counter look at 2 sets of inputs for drag race mode?

Example:
Have the start sensors be Input 1 & 2 on phidget 16/16/0
Have the stop sensors be Input 3 & 4 on same phidget

This could even bee as simple as setting 3 & 4 as "Pit In" and have pclapcounter look at them for a "lap count"

I ask because we are now designing custom in slot sensors, and by allowing multiple inputs it would make wiring and extra hardware lower then trying to build a board to combine the 2 sensors (it's more complicated then just wiring them together!)

Yes i think it's possible by editing the phidget_sn.ini file, i will do some test tonight and keep you informed.

I test it and it work fine, you can redirect the digital IO to another lane, edit the phidget_sn.ini file, you will find something like this:

[17299]
DI0=LANE_1
DI0_MIN=10
DI1=LANE_2
DI1_MIN=10
DI2=LANE_3
DI2_MIN=10
DI3=LANE_4
DI3_MIN=10
[LANEPOWER]
LANEPOWER_1=OD0
LANEPOWER_SN_1=17299
LANEPOWER_2=OD1

In this example the IO 2 trigger lane 3 , after modification it will trigger lane 2:

[17299]
DI0=LANE_1
DI0_MIN=10
DI1=LANE_2
DI1_MIN=10
DI2=LANE_2
DI2_MIN=10
DI3=LANE_4
DI3_MIN=10
[LANEPOWER]
LANEPOWER_1=OD0
LANEPOWER_SN_1=17299
LANEPOWER_2=OD1

REM:
If you enter into the phidget setup window of PCLC and click the OK button then your special configuration will be overwrited !!!