[Slot.it]

After months of write, test, debug, repeat, we are confident enough to release oXigen 4.0 in a very restricted and controlled manner during the Suzuka Double digital.

First of all: why oXigen 4.0? Two main reasons
1 - Nordic, the maker of the ICs that O2 is built on, has dropped support for the current 250 kbps data rate from all future ICs, and they are discontinuing production, slowly, of the old versions currently used by O2. Therefore, unless we chose to let O2 to die at some point in the future in the future, we had to plan the switch to a data rate which is supported by the old chips and the new one. This breaks compatibility but opens the doors to future development.
2 - as we were forced to do the switch, breaking compatibility, we have also changed all the protocols to improve and expand to overcome limitations and give space for further development.

What are the major advantages in the near term?
1 - a new dongle. We believe all the issues of the latest 3x versions are due to the old dongle which can't cope with the data streams any more. All things being equal we have never seen the same issues with the new firmware on the new dongle.
2 - RCSO2. I'm really impressed by the quality of Martin and Marcel's RMS which is going to replace the old Chrono. It is a completely new system that does all that Chrono does, and more, but better.

And what are the disadvantages?
1 - incompatible with A and B in car chips. Sorry about that. If your system is mostly based on legacy ICs, stay with 3.x, but there will be no further development on it.
2 - we've tried to make upgrade as smooth as possible thanks again to the work made by the RCS02 Team and Cristian, our engineer. However, it is an upgrade between systems so it requires some time and patience.

For in car ICs type C and B2, SCP3 and PA (and in the future, ARC controller), the upgrade is very simple, like any other upgrade via the APP
For type B1, and legacy cartridge (for SCP 1, 1.1, 2), the Bootloader tries to handle all with a simple 'upgrade to 4x' command. A 'revert to 3x' command is also present.

If all goes well, in about two weeks the system will be rolled out.
We may contact some beta testers in the meanwhile.

PS
If I were Elon Musk I would have started start this thread like this "Dear Guinea Pigs..." But I'm not, so I haven't.

 

[Anders Trier]

when can we expect the new dongle in the stores?

 

[tamar.nelwan]

Hello Anders
The good thing about the new dongle is...that its not a bespoke Slot.it product. Its already out there on the market
I'm sure that when the tests with Oxigen 4.0 will go well general info on the Dongle specs will be published.
So people can source their own and install Oxigen 4.0 firmware on it.

With kind regards
Tamar

 

[Chris - DSR]

Great News!

 

[Ade]

Hello Anders



The good thing about the new dongle is...that its not a bespoke Slot.it product. Its already out there on the market



I'm sure that when the tests with Oxigen 4.0 will go well general info on the Dongle specs will be published.



So people can source their own and install Oxigen 4.0 firmware on it.







With kind regards



Tamar

Something like this ?

Any ideas as to what the cost of the dongle programmer might be 🤔.

 

[tamar.nelwan]

Hello Slotfriends
Just a quick update on Oxigen 4.0, today we upgraded 9 cars and 7 controllers to Oxigen 4.0 and ran 7 cars for 45 min simultaneously on the new 1 Mbit standard. Not as many and as long as I had hoped but that was all the amount of time, SCP3 controllers and cars with C-chips left available at the end of the Suzuka 6hrs test day.

Overall inpression was very positive, we limited this first test to SCP3 and B2/C1 Chips for the simplicity of the upgrade procedure via the Nordic RFT app. Which has a handy feature for an Oragnistaion to "by pass" ownership of the O2 devices. The whole procedure took less than 30 min. We ran the test under the new RSC02 race management system not the previously reported Chrono 2.0
Feed back from the drivers was very positive, all reported Oxigen 4.0 was very responsive, better than 3.0 and some said "closest to running an analoge car experience they've ever had".

Was it all picture perfect...no, as mentioned before, not as many and not as long as we'd hoped to have tested.
We still need to look into the procedure of upgrading SCP1, SCP2 and B1 chips via the boot loader, and we had some minor pairing issues. But I'm confident we'll be able to get those under control before the GT3 races kick of the Suzuka weekend on Saturday morning.

With kind regards
Tamar

 

[Henri]

Hello Slotfriends
Just a quick update on Oxigen 4.0, today we upgraded 9 cars and 7 controllers to Oxigen 4.0 and ran 7 cars for 45 min simultaneously on the new 1 Mbit standard. Not as many and as long as I had hoped but that was all the amount of time, SCP3 controllers and cars with C-chips left available at the end of the Suzuka 6hrs test day.

Overall inpression was very positive, we limited this first test to SCP3 and B2/C1 Chips for the simplicity of the upgrade procedure via the Nordic RFT app. Which has a handy feature for an Oragnistaion to "by pass" ownership of the O2 devices. The whole procedure took less than 30 min. We ran the test under the new RSC02 race management system not the previously reported Chrono 2.0
Feed back from the drivers was very positive, all reported Oxigen 4.0 was very responsive, better than 3.0 and some said "closest to running an analoge car experience they've ever had".

Was it all picture perfect...no, as mentioned before, not as many and not as long as we'd hoped to have tested.
We still need to look into the procedure of upgrading SCP1, SCP2 and B1 chips via the boot loader, and we had some minor pairing issues. But I'm confident we'll be able to get those under control before the GT3 races kick of the Suzuka weekend on Saturday morning.

With kind regards
Tamar

Great Job Tamar, Thanxx

 

[GRUNZ]

Good stuff Tamar.
But I believe that there is a bit of placebo effect here....maybe I am wrong, but the hardware in the controllers and chips has not changed.
So unless the 4.0 firmware is brining some super smart changes in the protocol between the car chip and the controllers, there should not be a big difference.
Or unless the 4.0 firmware is unlocking some hidden features of the hardware on these devices.
I believe that most of the good new things are happening between the controllers and the dongle with the dongle able to handle more data from the controllers.
One visible improvement should be the reduction in time between the car passing over the S/F line and the RMS registering the lap: have you notice this?

 

[tamar.nelwan]

Hello Gio, tend to agree on the "placebo" effect and so does Maurizio ( He'd already mentioned: "nothing's changed between car/controller communication" when I debriefed him Sunday evening ) but...
..if drivers are happy with how the car is running on 4.0...I'm not going to argue against it. 😇

For me the most important targets to reach were testing the ease and succes rate of upgrading to 4.0 and how stable the system was running. I'm no computer expert, but so far, according to my and Stefan K's standards..so good.

With kind regards
Tamar

 

[GRUNZ]

I agree, if Guinea pigs are happy, why complaining ;-)
But also to signify that oXigen 3.0 was/is "as good as analog" ;-)

 

[Minardi]

Just to add something to this discussusion because I see already some confusion, RMS related.
In the first post of this thread, Maurizio mentions RCSO2, but he means Chrono2. Chrono2 is the replacement of the original Chrono from Slot IT. RCSO2 is our current RMS, out since a few years (5-6 already) with simulations and up to 8 cars support

Chrono2 is fully adapted for Firmware 4.xx

Note that (and not many people may have thought about this yet), that current RMS solutions, like RCSO2, need to be adapted to the new protocol.
In other words, RCSO2 today will not work with FW 4.xx. We are looking at the code as we speak to see if we can easily adapt, but the new protocol is so much faster that some algorithms need to be looked at. We hope we succeed. And yes, we will work on RCS NG (follow up of RCSO2 with all the simulations) once Bootloader and Chrono2 is up and running. It is in beta now and used at upcoming Eindhoven event. Fingers crossed. It is just too bad that I will not be able to join because of priorities at work, but for what I have seen and know, Chrono2 with FW 4.xx is super stable.

 

[fer226]

So with version oxigen 4.0, chip A and B will not work???

 

[tamar.nelwan]

A chip no, but that's such an old chip by now with limited memory space that it can't even run latest 3.0 firmware.
B1 can be upgraded to 4.0 but requires procedure via boot loader.
B2 and C chips will be able to be upgraded simply via Slot.it app.

With kind regards
Tamar

 

[Slot.it]

Unfortunately, like I wrote, there is absolutely no way to make chips A and B work. They are built on a chip whose internal memory is too small.
B1m B2, C are OK. All cartridges OK.
There is no need to buy a programmer for the 'generic off the shelf' dongle. Yes I think it is like the one shown (Nordic unit), but there are several others.
The firmware can be loaded via USB using a Nordic program.

 

[mtucker666]

A chip no, but that's such an old chip by now with limited memory space that it can't even run latest 3.0 firmware.
B1 can be upgraded to 4.0 but requires procedure via boot loader.
B2 and C chips will be able to be upgraded simply via Slot.it app.

With kind regards
Tamar

That's good news, saves me a job so I can keep the b1 without the need to register etc and swap to a new B2 chip

 

[tamar.nelwan]

For want of a nail...
Mr Tucker, you are off course perfectly in your own right to do as you please...but...
You're spending a lot of time..and money, on a weekend racing abroad. (I assume you are talking about your car for the Suzuka Double digital this weekend)
For which you undoubtedly have prepped you car with some new braids, wheels and other running gear...and you'll have a brand new matched and run in Flat-6 at your disposal. With some serious competition on a daunting track, a chip failing will ruin you race.. big time.

Do you really want to put all that at risk by running an at least 4 year old 02 chip? One that has been used, raced and crashed several times? One where the soldering of key components like the antenna and the capacitor have been exposed to the constant vibrations of running on Ninco tracks?

Dear slot friends, my advice to anyone that chooses to compete at the high level and demands International DiSCA endurance racing brings...O2 chips should be considered as "disposables".
New race, new chip or at least the latest version. Its penny wise pound foolish not to do so compared to the costs of the whole race weekend.

With kind regards
Tamar

 

[GRUNZ]

Please send all your disposed chips to me. I will pay for the postage! ;-)
However, I can only agree with Tamar here...I have never thought of it in these terms.

 

[tamar.nelwan]

@ Gio, Disposable as in for a new big event. They're perfectly good and usable for practice and club racing. I don't dispose anything that still works.
I have cars that have done the full 24hrs and several 6 hr races on the same chip, but at a certain point its just part of "preventive maintenance" to replace it.
Just like doing so on lead wires or any other component in your race car.
Sure 4 year old lead wires may also perform perfectly...until they fail during the race. So why run the risk of running a 4 year old B1 chip?

LOL I also just noticed that we have two topics with exactly the same name and Subject on Oxigen 4.0
Maurizio, as you are the O.P. an topic starter, can you edit the title of at least one of them?

With kind regards
Tamar

 

[LMP]

From reading both topics it’s very clear to me that multiple forum contributors are making assumptions about how other people utilise their chips.

Please remember, like with anything else in this hobby, just because you do something a certain way does not mean someone else will, nor does it establish “right” or “wrong”

Disposable? Don’t make me laugh. May as well burn a €50 note if you think these things are disposable. Have some common sense.

 

[GRUNZ]

damn Gary, you just disrupted my chip black market idea. ;-)