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DS Racing Winslot Software

15K views 28 replies 13 participants last post by  Paul247 
#1 ·
We have recently installed DS timing equipment to our new 6 lane club track and will be running DS Winslot Software. Whilst our initial impressions of this have been very favourable there are one or two slight issues with the software which i'm sure can be easily resolved with the help of other forum members who are already using this as a race control system.
We are in the process of producing a quick guide of how to download & install the software for anyone wishing to upgrade or invest in DS equipment which we can email to anyone who sends me a PM.
Whilst i am sure that we will get to grips with the software it would be usefull to ourselves and other forum members if we could exchange ideas & experiences of the software.
So if you are already using the software please post here so that we can get some dialogue going.
Sean.
 
#5 ·
I am a massive fan of the DS hardware.

I am a regual user of a 4 and 6 lane DS lap counter, light bridges and stop go boxes. I did install the winslot software, but didn't ever use it in anger. It always seemed a little too expensive for what it does.

I know that the PC lap counter software has just been updated so that it detects the start signal from the DS hardware and it is 25 euros cheaper than winslot. I have a licence for pclapcounter, but have never used it, due to it not detecting the start and end in prior versions, so I can't give you any more information than that.

I guess I have always been a little bit sceptical about investing in software that is now 6 years old and doesn't seem to have any sort of support.

As an aside from the software.

I am not sure if I have uncovered a bug in the hardware, but as there are not many people that have 6 lanes and use the stop go boxes I wonder if you could confirm if you can reproduce the following

the mannual for the DS-300 is a little tricky to understand

"Programming especial control TOTAL or INDIVIDUAL on racing.
How it works ?

TOTAL Control: Indicates that the computer will stop / start all cars at the same
time, something usuall in Slot racing competition.

INDIVIDUAL Control: Indicates that the computer will Stop/ start the cars one by
one when they finish the programmated mode. This is a must programm to use the new
features Formula1, as at the end of the race , the winning car stops and in the following lap
the rest of the cars stops when they cross the sensor, knowing the rest of race places
because of lap difference and time spend on the last lap.

It is also usefull to do racing to a determinate laps and know the time spend on each
car to cover the full programmed laps. It is needed that all cars finish the race to know all
timing. Only pushing the LAPS/TIME key we will know all time spend on all lanes.

For INDIVIDUAL control is needed to have the new "PRO-STOP and GO box"
(DS.0061)"

To me the individual control should mean that when a car finishes the race it stops while the other keep going, until they to finish

Specifically I am useing the f1 mode with time off

for total control it works fine and the all the cars stop when the last car crosses the line, but for individual control, I get an issue where it doesn't start the race for pairs of the cars, 2 and 4 stop but 1 and 3 seem to keep going

I think I have the DS-061 which are the individual relay boxes as they have pro-control written on the side, but how can you tell if they are DS-021? I know it is an issue for 4 and 6 lanes, but have never checked to see if it is a problem for 2 lanes

If someone could check and see if they can reproduce the error I would be most grateful.
 
#9 ·
Thanks for your replies so far.
elow the mean - as you rightly state DS022 Stop go box switches 2 lanes together the Pro Stop Go box switches 2 lanes individually. The Pro Box is exactly the same on the outside except that it has Pro series stamped on one end of the box. Sounds like you may have your track power feeds connected incorrectly??? Will PC Lap counter support 6 lanes?
-Sy- Unfortunately SRS only supports 4 lanes, we have a 6 lane track and are looking for software to use with the DS hardware. We have installed DS Winslot and ran our first meeting with it last night. The software is more suited to Endurance racing and does not support a heat / semi / finals format. Our origional race control program was fantastic and more suited to a club race night, Scalex Club Manager by Kevin Tombeur. In an ideal situation we would like to be able to connect this to the DS hardware. Does anyone know if Kevin is still around the club scene?
r3k0 - It may be a little pricey, but is one of very few options available for good lap counting / timing systems without having to have a degree in electronics or computers to instal it.

Sean
 
#11 ·
QUOTE (Pendleslot @ 17 Jun 2009, 15:06) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>elow the mean - as you rightly state DS022 Stop go box switches 2 lanes together the Pro Stop Go box switches 2 lanes individually. The Pro Box is exactly the same on the outside except that it has Pro series stamped on one end of the box. Sounds like you may have your track power feeds connected incorrectly??? Will PC Lap counter support 6 lanes?

PC lap counter will do upto 8 lanes, but as i said I have very little experience of using it. I am sure that SRS is just as good, but again haven't really got any experience.

I checked the stop go boxes that I have and they are all the ds-061 pro versions. I would have thought that if I have the power feeds incorrect, then I would also see issues in total mode. did you have a chance to see if switching modes made any difference for you?

Thanks

D
 
#12 ·
Hi Sy I have downloaded the software onto our computer to work with my DS300 with Stop go boxes. I can't seem to get it to work with the ds 300 system and the instrutions don't really tell me anything. I have put drivers names, track details etc into the program. I just need to know if it is the software that controls the DS or the Ds that controls the software. please could you or anyone who has used this software shed some light on this or what I may have done wrong.

Nic
 
#13 ·
Hi Nic,

There are a couple of things it could be:

1) The serial cable, needs to be straight through not crossed over. This means pins 2, 3 and 5 on one connector go to pins 2, 3 and 5 on the other, some serial cables have 2 and 3 crossed, this won't work with a DS-300 and PC.

2) The baud rate setting could be wrong. I have it default to 57600 baud, as that was the setting on the DS-300 I first connected the software to. The setting should be on the back of your DS-300.

You should make sure that the interface is set to the DS-300. When a race starts SRS listens to the DS-300 and receives lap timing information for each driver. You can verify if it is getting data from the DS-300 by monitoring the interface port:

1) Click on the Configuration Tab
2) Click on the Set-up Interace... button
3) Select DS-300 from the Lap Counting Interface drop down list box.

Now make sure the communications port is set-up to the port your DS-300 is connected to, check the communication settings, the only one you may have to change is the baud rate and port number the other settings should be Parity:None, Data bits:8, Stop bits:1.

Click on the Open Port button to establish a link with the DS-300, now if you set-up the DS-300 so its ready to race, then manually trigger a lap count you should see a message appear under the buttons in the text box. This should start with E0 and end with EB, if you don't see this or there is data but it doesn't start and end with E0 and EB then the settings for the port are wrong or the cable isn't correct.

Thanks as much information as I can think of at the moment, if you pass all the above and still have problems please let me know.
 
#14 ·
Nic,
I stumbled at the same place you seemed to have, (for slightly different reasons) however basically following the same instructions and mine is now working and I like it! I don't have the stop go boxes (Yet) but the SW itself works fine. A few days of running and it is very simple to use, which is great as I'm no computer whiz either
 
#16 · (Edited by Moderator)
OK I really am not a computer wizz at all, but I have to get this up and running for both home and Club use.

I have just spent ages loading all the club info on to the DS SW but Like Nic and Sean say it is more suited to endurance racing / team events.

Our Track is a four lane routed track.

At the moment we race four categories a night:
1 4x4
2 Sports car
3 F1
4 GT

Each race has is preceded 3 minute practice session. Which must show lap times so that mods made can be monitored.

Followed by the 3 minute race itself.

Depending on turnout there are three groups usually four in each.

However if there are less we would like the driver from the lowest group to have the option of moving up and racing in the next group and same again from the middle group to the top.

The SW needs to be able to store all the drivers names and preferably their PB in each category.

And a simple click and paste of each of the drivers names should be able to set up a night of racing for all four of the categories.

Preferably it should be able to recall who raced on which lane from the week before so that you don't race on the same lane for the same category twice in four week cycle.

Driver #1 - Race 1 = Red, Race 2 = Yellow, Race 3 = Blue, Race 4 = Green.
Driver #2 - Race 1 = Yellow, Race 2 = Blue, Race 3 = Green, Race 4 = Red.
Driver #3 - Race 1 = Blue, Race 2 = Green , Race 3 = Red , Race 4 = Yellow.
Driver #4 - Race 1 = Green, Race 2 = Red, Race 3 = Yellow, Race 4 = Blue.

The set up of the nights racing should be as simple as possible, believe it or not there are people out there that don't use computers?

Now this should be quite simple I would have thought.

Anyone?
 
#18 ·
Hi everybody,

I actually have a ds020 lap counter+bridge. Unfortunately, this lap counter does not have a DB9/RS232/Serial port.

It only has a "Control" connector, 6 pins like din but "rotated".

Does somebody knows how i can connect it to a computer ?

Or even directly from the light bridge ?

Thanks for your help.
 
#19 · (Edited by Moderator)
New version of SRS planned to start very soon.

This won't simply be a new version its going to be a complete re-write. The original version was useful in that it gave me some insight into how clubs run race meets and the options required, but it was written in Visual Basic 6.0 which officially isn't supportted by Microsoft anymore and since its a 32bit EXE cannot be used on 64bit systems due to compatibility issues.

I won't bore you with the details but new version is going to be written in JAVA, which will mean that it isn't limited to a PC running Windows anymore, infact you will also be able to run it on a MAC if you wish.

The new package will include all the features of the existing version, it will also include some features not in the original such as support for the Online Racing System get those ideas coming in now...
 
#20 ·
Since I have an adage of "old computers never die, they just get used for slot racing", I'm wondering about the next release of SRS.

Java 6 (and later) doesn't support Windows 98, 98 SE or ME, but my old but still serviceable laptop (with a serial port) won't support anything later than Win98 SE. So I'm guessing that the next release of SRS will require XP (which Microsoft are de-supporting already), 2000, or later.

Will the VB6 version still be hosted for download (as it is compatible with Win98) for others like me that have rather old systems supporting their slot addiction?
 
#21 ·
Why not put linux on your old laptop, if you plan to use it just for slot racing you will find that it becomes like new, linux performs much better than windows and if you haven't used it before you will be amazed at the performance. The next choice is which version, I have use OpenSuse which is very nice and well supported and free.

I will always have the original version available for download, but when I start on the Java version I won't be adding any new features to the VB version.

The next version of SRS will run on any OS that has a JAVA virual machine and it doesn't have to be the latest implementation of JAVA either, so you could possibly use JAVA 2, but its very early days atm.
 
#22 ·
OK some time has passed and I have had NO problems at a all with my DS200 until now
it has decided that it does not want to play properly, is there a reset button to set the defaults back to what it was when I got it? A manufacturers Default?

Why what's wrong with it, well it counts the laps fine,
and it gives a time for each lap as the car goes through,(or just after) once the session has finished, you should be able to press the second button from the right (1st white one Chrono) and it should give you the fastest lap time, and the second fastest,for that session.

However mine seems to have some sort of memory problem it gives the same time for every session 7.409 and on the 2nd press its 8.something.

But I'm getting times of 5.9 I have tried switching modes, switching on and off, but no-matter what times I do it always comes up with the same results?

Does anyone know what this could be? Or what I can do to reset it?

Help
Please
 
#26 ·
Hello,
I am trying to set up my system with the DS software. The problem is that the registration of the Serial number, Register number and the Serial key do not seem to work.
The serial number I got was 116891795--11320372999 when I bought the software. What is serial and register number here? Then I got a register key from IBB Auto Racing in Spain: 1800602238--9578777153. When I try to enter this key nothing happens. Do some of you guys know how to enter this correctly?
I would really like to get this to work...


Best regards,
Johnny Borgelin
 
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