Derby Talk

I went to Adafruit and ordered a couple of the LED backpacks. I noticed that they come in 5 different colors, red, green, yellow, blue and white. The blue and white cost a few dollars more, but it occurred to me that you could match the display and lane colors for a little extra coolness.

I didn't take any pictures last night, but I did successfully breadboard test the Revision 2 set up. I also tested it with the solenoid setup, except that the relay I had on hand needed more than 5 volts to activate it. I wound up adding an LED in place of the relay to the circuit to visually indicate that the relay was activated.

Ok, I am ready.

The race is Friday and I got all the sensors and the gate switch installed in the track on Sunday.

I wasn't able to get 4 of the LED displays because the red and blue ones have been out of stock.

GPRM is working great with the arduino timer.

On the track, I put in a new start gate and I added rubber sheet to the stop section.

I will take pictures on Friday.

jzarvey wrote:Our pack has an older Fast Lane line judge. It only determines the finishing order and does not have a computer interface. Has anyone used Indy's Arduino timer to interface an older Fast Lane judge to the computer for use with GPRM? I thought I would try this route, since we have the display and finish line electronics, we just need a way to hook it up to the computer.

Thanks,

Hi all. Thought I would give an update on this project. I was able to "splice in" to our Pack's Fast Lane P2XL timer. Note that this "timer" only displays finish order and for this year we were looking to be able to interface it with a computer to use with Grand Prix Race Manager. With the help of Indy's Arduino timer, some help from Indy himself, and some reverse engineering of the Fast Lane timer I was able to accomplish our goal and save some money for the pack.

Our derby was today and everything worked the way we wanted.

I will be putting together an outline of what I did and posting it in the near future. For now, it is time to recover from the Derby.

I've added an additional page showcasing pack implementations of the timer:

http://www.miscjunk.org/mj/pg_pdt_pack1.html

If you would like to have your build added to this page please email me a few photos, your pack/group information (number and area) and any additional information you would like to share.

I'm looking at doing this project for 4 lanes... However I have a lot to learn since this type of thing is not my strong suit. I understand basic programming and electronic concepts, but this is a whole 'nother level. I trying to get a parts list together for a friend to order for me from digikey. I know you can get from other sources, but he says it will be worth my time to find what I can on digikey for him to order by tomorrow. However the first part I tried to find was the arduino board but there seems to be 3 different ones to choose from? I'm guessing it doesn't matter which one for this project but would like a confirmation...http://www.digikey.com/scripts/dksearch ... rduino+uno.." target="_blank. best I can tell the SMD one is the latest and I'll probably go with that.

Any use to upgrade to Due or Mega version? Ideas on additional functionality that would be "nice" to have that would require one of these?

You may be able to get an Arduino board cheaper from another source. I got mine from SparkFun.

For electronic components, I like getting them from Mouser.

chromegsx wrote:... Any use to upgrade to Due or Mega version? Ideas on additional functionality that would be "nice" to have that would require one of these?

I'm not sure what that red one is (probably a 3rd party equivalent) but any of the Unos will work. A revision 2 Uno is available on Amazon for $14 (free shipping) which will also work.

With 4 lanes on the Uno you'll have at least 2 digital and 3 analog 'left over' for other functionality.

Indy wrote:

chromegsx wrote:... Any use to upgrade to Due or Mega version? Ideas on additional functionality that would be "nice" to have that would require one of these?

I'm not sure what that red one is (probably a 3rd party equivalent) but any of the Unos will work. A revision 2 Uno is available on Amazon for $14 (free shipping) which will also work.

With 4 lanes on the Uno you'll have at least 2 digital and 3 analog 'left over' for other functionality.

Thanks. I thought of another use for the extra outputs possibly if I get this working. I was thinking maybe you could add segmeted timing meaning you could time the car at different points along the track to see if you are gaining or loosing in certain track sections.

Trying to reference part numbers and I came across Jameco part number 1919191 that doesn't come up on jameco's site only 24vdc solenoid I can see is a SOLENOID, 24VDC, 60 OHMS,PULL 1 INCH STROKE Does this sound close to what is on the drawing?

chromegsx wrote:Trying to reference part numbers and I came across Jameco part number 1919191 that doesn't come up on jameco's site only 24vdc solenoid I can see is a SOLENOID, 24VDC, 60 OHMS,PULL 1 INCH STROKE Does this sound close to what is on the drawing?

I've got an email out to someone who I believe bought the solenoid you referenced to see if he had any issues - I'll let you know what I hear. I also need to update the parts list since Jameco does not carry the original one.

Indy wrote:

chromegsx wrote:Trying to reference part numbers and I came across Jameco part number 1919191 that doesn't come up on jameco's site only 24vdc solenoid I can see is a SOLENOID, 24VDC, 60 OHMS,PULL 1 INCH STROKE Does this sound close to what is on the drawing?

I've got an email out to someone who I believe bought the solenoid you referenced to see if he had any issues - I'll let you know what I hear. I also need to update the parts list since Jameco does not carry the original one.

He hasn't ordered/tried the newer one yet. The specs do look very similar to the original part.

I had some custom PCB shields fabricated:



more info: http://www.miscjunk.org/mj/pg_pdt_pcb1.html

Indy thank you for this easy to build project. Love the new board. Ordered one and working on building the timer for my son's scout troop.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Reverb using Tapatalk 2.

MadMikeSS wrote:Indy thank you for this easy to build project. Love the new board. Ordered one and working on building the timer for my son's scout troop.

Thanks - glad you like it. Let me know how your build goes.

I've just updated the website with a new version of the timer code (sketch) - highlights are:

- Fix: Racing state loop, finish detection routines optimized
- New: Timer precision increased to 4 decimal places (0.0001)
- New: Option added where timer can be reset by closing start gate
- New: Timer and displays routines modified to handle finish times > 9.999 seconds
- Fix: Timer now goes into finish state if powered-up with the start gate open
- Fix: Code clean-up

A big thanks to everyone that contributed by testing, giving feedback or making code contributions.