[Fluff_de]

Hi everyone,

I was inspired by Chris's idea to try oXigen (documented here under "my Oxigen Journey") and curious.

So I got myself a test kit.

I am mainly interested in:

• How does the interaction of oXigen (O2) work on a Carrera track?
• How is the driving behavior with O2?
• Interaction of Cockpit XP and O2

Background:
I we use silicone tires on our tracks to get rid of the weekly polishing of PUs. Unfortunately the silicon tires leave dirt on the ladders of the track. With big heavy Carrera D124 this is not a problem. But with light 132 cars without magnets, the digital signal is unfortunately disturbed. So that the cars react partly delayed. Analog driving is no problem at all. Also cleaning the ladder helps only conditionally, because after training and a 100 round race the problem comes back. The more the drivers drift, the sooner the problem comes back. Since O2 transmits the signal via radio, this could be a solution to our problem. And I'm also curious and enjoy trying out new technology.

Briefly about me/us:
I have two dual tracks (analog and Carrera digital) and drive weekly in turn on different tracks.
Here are some pictures of my track at home ("Brockhausring" and our club track ("slotrace56" in Erlangen (a city next to Nuremberg).
- Brockhausring:

- slotrace56:

Every race evening we drive 3 race series mostly with Carrera D124 (Classic, DTM, GT, BMW M1) but also Frankenslot Karts and BRM Gr. 2.
Also I love slot.it Gr. C, Sideways Group 5 and NSR Formula 86/89. But with the small ones there are unfortunately the said contact problems.
I also write AddOns for Cockpit XP and design racing scripts. In this respect I know Cockpit very well, love the possibility to design it according to my own wishes and to be able to extend the functions by AddOns. I will try to realize the chaos function via an AddOn that the oXigen cars stop at chaos.

Going forward
I suppose that I will have many questions and encounter some problems.
Since I read here very great competence, I hope you will accompany me and help me with my questions.

For a better overview I will place the individual problems in separate posts, so that it remains clear.
But I will summarize the results (successes and - hopefully not - failures) here.

Looking forward to the discussions with you
Fluff

 

[GRUNZ]

As Chris has demonstrated, oXigen can work perfectly on Carrera track.
Now there are two modes in which you can use oXigen on Carrera:
1) Use an oXigen chipped car with an SCP and try to integrate with the carrera system (counting lap, pit sensing, etc)
2) Use an oXigen chipper car with an SCP and use an oXigen native RMS (Chrono and RCSO2).

For case 1), you basically are trying to fit a square peg into a round hole: sure you can make it work but most likely it will be damn frustrating and it will never work 100% (with this I mean that you will miss some functionalities from both systems when run native).
For case 2) this is the best solution in my opinion. Once you have magnets below the track and have a carrera controller on ID4 set to lane change, you can use the carrera lane changers without any issue and all the other aspects of the race will be taken care by oXigen. If you use RCSO2, this will give you much better functionality (in terms of simulations) with native oXIgen then Cockpit XP with oXigen/Carrera hybrid.

 

[Fluff_de]

@GRUNZ thank you for your explanation. I see your point.

As long as I want to race with more than six racers, I would probably have to leave the hybrid. But with up to six drivers, you could use the previous installation. Would also have the advantage that the drivers who do not know oXigen so far, do not have to get used to a new race screen. This would make the changeover easier for them.
I would like to avoid that oXigen is rejected only because of the new race screen.

I also love Cockpit XP because it is so flexible.
You can completely customize your race screens in Cockpit. It is possible to show 8 different race screens with 8 different contents on up to 8 monitors (if Windows controls them separately). Furthermore you can extend Cockpit's functionality with almost every function you want by AddOns, which are programmed in Pascal.

Tonight (German time) I will meet with a friend and we will see how we can address the O2 dongle and so teach Cockpit to work with the dongle.
For example, it would be possible to stop the cars during chaos or to trigger chaos after deslotting ...
Also weather simulations or tire changes would be possible, if Cockpit can control the speed and the brake of the O2 cars...
Lots of room for small projects and fun.

Fluff

 

[GRUNZ]

Hi Fluff
To achieve what you are saying in Cockpit XP you will need to rewrite some code to handle the oXigen protocol: to me it sounds like you are extending Cockpit XP to become a Race Management System for oXigen without the need to be piggybacked to the Carrera system.
Actually, it would be really good if you manage to pull this off.
If you are planning to go this route and want some help with beta testing or talk about features I am more than happy to help you out.

 

[Henri]

As Chris has demonstrated, oXigen can work perfectly on Carrera track.
Now there are two modes in which you can use oXigen on Carrera:
1) Use an oXigen chipped car with an SCP and try to integrate with the carrera system (counting lap, pit sensing, etc)
2) Use an oXigen chipper car with an SCP and use an oXigen native RMS (Chrono and RCSO2).

For case 1), you basically are trying to fit a square peg into a round hole: sure you can make it work but most likely it will be damn frustrating and it will never work 100% (with this I mean that you will miss some functionalities from both systems when run native).
For case 2) this is the best solution in my opinion. Once you have magnets below the track and have a carrera controller on ID4 set to lane change, you can use the carrera lane changers without any issue and all the other aspects of the race will be taken care by oXigen. If you use RCSO2, this will give you much better functionality (in terms of simulations) with native oXIgen then Cockpit XP with oXigen/Carrera hybrid.

I can confirm Grunz's story, I have been driving Oxigen on a Carrera track for years, with great pleasure(Use an oXigen chipper car with an SCP and use an oXigen native RMS (Chrono and RCSO2).

 

[Fluff_de]

To achieve what you are saying in Cockpit XP you will need to rewrite some code to handle the oXigen protocol: to me it sounds like you are extending Cockpit XP to become a Race Management System for oXigen without the need to be piggybacked to the Carrera system.

I am in contact with the developer of Cockpit whether he wants to support O2. Because firstly Cockpit can only manage 8 lines but not more. Secondly some features can not be influenced by AddOns, e.g. you can add a lab but if you reach the end of a lap orientated race, the race will not end in Cockpit. So I cannot generate a standalone O2-RMS by AddOns.
But lap counting can be realized via Cockpit's sensors and the 132-mode of the O2-cars for six cars. So I cannot get rid of all Carrera stuff, when I want to use Cockpit. But I asked the developer to think about it and perhaps to enhance the number of IDs. We will see what happens...

 

[GRUNZ]

We use RCS-O2, and this is a dedicated RMS for oXigen.
The provided simulations for tyres and fuel are very good - the amount of fuel and tyre wear is based on how aggressive you are on the trigger and not just on laps.
It is a very good system and guess what, it can only support 8 drivers at this stage: the main reason being that you can only display so much information on a screen.
But for a small/medium club, 8 racers are more than enough. Consider that, even though oXigen can support 20 IDs, the large events organised by DiSCA have up to 15 teams.
I have never seen a race with 20 cars on it.
And to be fair, I do not see the use of simulations on large events mainly because displaying the tyre/fuel information is very problematic in large settings (maybe this will change if we start using mobile devices as satellite displays that each driver has in front of them).
All of the above just to say that the fact that Cockpit XP only supports 8 drivers is not a show stopper for supporting oXigen.

 

[GRUNZ]

I would like also to explain some of my negative comments here and in Chris' thread about using this mixed mode of oXigen with Carrera.
I understand the rationale behind this: you want to introduce slowly your club members to oXigen and the best way of doing is racing along Carrera chipped cars and controllers with an oXigen chipped car and controller.
As Fluff said here, club members are familiar with the interface of Cockpit XP so changing too many variables in one go might be too much.
The other is cost: the SCP controllers are not cheap (although for what they are capable of, they are one of the best slot car controllers out there [note I said slot car controllers without using "digital"]). The chips are also not cheap. If you have invested on a good Carrera controller and a bunch of chips it is a lot of money to throw away and starting from scratch.
I have been in the same situation. I was mainly a SSD user and my digital club members invested in SSD controllers and chips.
Plus our club has had only 5 members for a while (only now we have reached the magical 8 member figure).
I was lucky because when I decided to start looking into oXigen, one of the shops here in NZ had a massive sell out so some of us bought some SCP2 controller and oXigen carts.
Some members had already an SCP 2 handle used for their analog racing. So I bought some extra oXigen carts to convert their handle to oXigen use (and this is one of the best features of the SCP, to be component based and able to serve digital as well as analog).
Overtime, I have bought more handles and carts so now I have more controllers than club members ;-) and some have also bought their own controller/cart.
As a pre-cursor of the current GT3 racing we do, and to train people with the interface of RCSO2, and whole digital concept, I set up a bunch of NSR 997 for all of them.
Good handling cars out of the box. Once they were hooked, I proposed the GT3 class based on DiSCA and asked for each member to buy their own GT3 car and oXigen chip.
Which they did. And since then we have not looked back.
So my approach has been always to bring people to the full experience. Sure there is some learning curve but if you think that the system is good and add to your racing experience, people will come along. Sure, I have invested a lot of money into this (I still have all the NSR cars, 40 odds oxigen chips, and 10 SCP controllers) but it is paying dividend.

Now, why did I not go to the hybrid route with SSD and OXigen? Well for me it is like I want to demonstrate how good a sideway GT3 car is compared to a GT3 Carrera car.
Assume here that in my club no one has seen a sideways GT3 and we have been racing only Carrera GT3.
So, at one race meet (this could be on SSD/Carrera or any other system), I bring along my Sideways GT3 car with nice grippy tyres and I pitch it against the rest of the Carrera grid.
Of course (if I did my job right on the SIdeways car) I would lap around the Carrara cars and my club mates will be astonished (and rightly pissed off ;-)) on how good this car is.
What I would do then if I want to bring something new to the club? My initial approach would be to prep one car and let them test one by one.
This should allow them to see how a better handling car that is. If still not convinced in buying their own, then I would buy some more and prepare for them.
Honestly, out of 5, I am sure that at least a couple would be convinced and ready to buy their own. Then my job would be just to buy and prepare for the more skeptical ones.
Next step would be to have some races based on the new cars (maybe a one off while we do the main events still based on Carrera cars).
Once they get hooked and start to see how nicely they drive (and can be upgraded with suspension and other small upgrade - you do not want to make this a deep-pocket race), propose again to switch and I am sure than even the skeptical ones will come along.

Bejesus, this post is longer than I have anticipated. Sorry for that. And I am sure I have not made my point clear(er)!
To sum up, if you are prepared to invest in the system, the rest of your members will come along and you can skip the hybrid approach to demonstrate the full capability.

 

[Fluff_de]

I see your point. But the hybrid also has advantages in the RMS when there are only six drivers.
If I understand correctly, O2 cannot display sector times and top speed. The dongle simply doesn't provide that.
With Cockpit and the Carrera sensors, I can continue to use that if I place a magnet in front of the sensors. Of course, this results in several laps for the O2 system in a physical lap, since one lap is measured with each magnet. But that doesn't bother with up to six drivers.
I would make the magnets movable or as electromagnets, so that one can drive also times with O2 and one lap is then also only one lap.

But at the moment I don't see only a small chance for oXigen. It is so buggy and the quality is very low of manual/products.

I can't get a connection between bootloader and controller/cars. The dongle is recognized, but I can't access the controllers or cars, so I can't set the cars to O2 with D132 mode, for example.

The bootloader, for example, is poorly and dangerously programmed. It reloads files from a Danish address, so that my virus scanner sets an alert and blocks it. This led to an incomplete and incorrect installation of the bootloader. I had to unlock this address first. A hint in the manual would be nice. I then restored my backup to get a clean system again, unloocked the adress in my antivirus software and then reinstalled the bootloader error free (only the installation not working).
Chrono works with the dongle, so drivers and dongle should be okay, but the bootloader didn't get any connection.
I tried one Controller and three car chips type C.

The bootloader does not show up under "Apps" in Windows after installation, so can't be removed the official way.... all rather unprofessional and it does not run either.

With the iOS-slot.it-app I can use neither "Read" nor "Write" with the Decoder Type C, after I have installed the current firmware. Before the update I can see other setting options of the decoder. After the update I don't see them anymore and after "Connect" "Read" and "Write" remain grayed out. I can't rename the cars anymore.
After I removed a Type C from the slot.it app, I cannot remount.

Even if I have connected to the Type C with the slot.it app or Nordic app, I can't update it with new firmware if I have chosen the "normal" way. "Normal" is, decoder on the track without connection to the controller, decoder starts flashing after 10s. With the normal way, the slot.it app just hangs when doing DFU, as does the Nordic app. I have to kill the slot.it-app, because there is no reaction any more.
The Nordic app at least reports an error that there is write protection in the chip. I can cancel and use the app after this.
I can change the firmware on Type C only when I put the car on the magnet in DFU mode. But even then only every 3rd-10th time. Only if in the Nordic app the car appears with "DFUO2-car" or something like that, then it works. If Nordic app reports the name of the Type C I gave the decoder while registration in slot.it-app, (which is spelled funny wrong at the first character), then it does not work, even if the car is on the magnet. This happend often.

I have a second dongle here, which I updated from 3.10 to 3.12 via the bootloader - right at the beginning. The dongle is recognized by the bootloader, but the dongle does not work with Chrono. I have downgraded to 3.10. But it still does not work. I don't know if the update broke it or if it didn't work before.

This is not an advertisement for oXigen either. I haven't updated the second dongle yet and I'm running it with 3.10 because I'm afraid that it will break too.

In summary, I am anything but enthusiastic about the quality and error free or plug and play is far away. This is not a system that can be recommended to everyman. Since nothing worked for me right away as it says in the manual - with the exception of the registration and the pairing of the controller with the car.

But driving the SCP-3 and the O2-chipped cars is great.
It's a shame that such a great system has so many initial problems.

Fluff

 

[Minardi]

I am the last one to say that oXigen is plug and play, even for an average slotracer with some experience with computers and apps, it is quite a challenge . Yes the manuals could be better, but once you realize how small Slot It is (in number of employees) than what they have achieved so far is quite remarkable. And it is a very complex system to begin with, support for multiple brands, different chips, wireless controllers, apps, RMS, bootloader, and let's not forget, cars is their main job, not oxigen. When you see the dedication they have and their love for slot racing in general, you can only applaud and support them, and that is actually what a lot of oXigen users do. I am sure Mr Flippant has almost every part of the manuals covered with videos, the RCS team helps them with bootloader and new chrono and there are many more enthusiasts who recognize what is real and help out. I think what I am trying to say is look at it from that way, and let us as a community support oXigen and take it to a next level.

 

[Fluff_de]

RCS team helps them with bootloader

I am still convinced of the idea of oXigen, but without the bootloader the system doesn't work. Do you have any idea what I have to do, that the bootloader gets connection.
I deactivated, I deinstalled my anti virus program. I tried it on two different computers. I run out of ideas...

 

[MALAFAMA]

If I'm not wrong, actually Bootloader is not needed for the system to work (it's just for updating).

To open another window... are you sure you have installed the corresponding firmware?

 

[GRUNZ]

As Minardi (Marcel - by the way, he and Martin are the developers behind RCS64, RCSO2, Bootloader and new Chrono - we should not forget that they do this in their spare time. RCS64 and RCSO2 have been the main reason for me to adopt digital and continue to use it today) said, there is a lot of knowledge here that can help.
Slot.it is a small firm of engineers with their primary focus on hardware and electronics.
oXigen is a great system, but I really think the suite of software around it is still the main bottleneck of the system.
I have been using it for a while, and I know how to work around some of the issues (for instance, the app is very laggy and the registration process not very intuitive).
But for new adopters that are not familiar with it, there is a very steep learning curve.

 

[Fluff_de]

To open another window... are you sure you have installed the corresponding firmware?

For the decoder chip O2 3.16d. For controller 3.16e shown as 3.16f.

 

[MALAFAMA]

Fluff_de, at one point in your post #9 you say that once you update the C chip to the latest firmware (3.16d) you can no longer connect to it. I just upgraded a C chip (I had it at 3.16c) and once upgraded I can connect perfectly again.

I have android. Could the problem be an IOS thing?

 

[Fluff_de]

I have android. Could the problem be an IOS thing?

Thank you for your test. I can connect, but I cannot "Read" and "Writhe".
Perhaps it is an iOS thing. My friends with Androids are in vacation so I have to wait. But I will check this.

 

[MALAFAMA]

I managed to test it with two IOS of my family members. In one the first time and in the other I had to go to "settings" and look for the slot.it app icon and activate bluetooth.

 

[Yattr]

I had iOS issues too. My iPhone XS was a major headache with O2. Upgraded to an iPhone 13 and everything has been significanly better. Not perfect but better...

 

[MALAFAMA]

with 13 at first, with 11 I had to go to settings and enable bluetooth

 

[Yattr]

Unfortunate. I went through all sorts of iterations of turning BT on/off and restarting the iPhone with the XS. With the 13 not as much.

Not unlike what others are experiencing, the process of getting things working and switching firmware can become extremely frustrating.