[injectorman]

Ive been flat out so so 'list' yet. We are currently working on the RMS and there is much to do. Today we reprogrammed the car chip to send throttle data along with brake, LB and lane change data, which is the basis for real fuel and sector timing. Were also working on a drag'n'droip system to arrange drivers, and a program that automatically enters all the cars during practice, then just drag names to cars, select track and press start. Lots of other basics and some goodies.
The screen will be reconfigurable, plus we plan a rotating screen so 24 cars will rotate in groups of 8, so the text is larger.
Phidget? Well we have our own phidget, the Lane Brain, it could easily be programmed to power start lights as it has 4 mosfet outputs. In fact we have a Lane Brain already for the start finish line with 4 spare outputs ready to be used
Set up will be default to basic, ie minimal text. Click to add info columns as required.
It will be intuitive to use with hopefully NO instruction manual needed for basic operation.

Rick

PS Ghost cars, safety cars will be a seperate program to the RMS.

 

[diegu]

Wow. Very impressive.

All the best,
Diegu

 

[sisko]

Hello Rick,

Phidgets ist just a example.
A starting light like Formula 1 need 7 digital outputs:
5 for red
1 for yellow
1 for green

1 digital input for a chaos-button. Maybe chaos-button per keyboard from racecontrol.
Questions:
- Is 7 digital Outputs for a starting light like formula 1 possible with 1 lane brain? I think i need 2 lane brains.
- how can i program these lane brains to use as a start light?
- How can Scorpius recognize jumpstarts? Software (the new racing management) or additional led's and a additional lane brain?

thanks
michael

 

[injectorman]

Ok the Lane Brain has four outputs for the solenoid drivers and another 2 for liven flipper, thats 6 so far. Then we have four drivers for the LED beacons. Plenty of outputs and 1 wireless input.
Wireless comms from Scorpius RMS to LB tio trigger start lights. Power off rails. Problem is another dongle would be needed as currently we dont need to send anything currently from PC to LB. And the LB doesnt have any USB inputs

False start detection is by Scorpius RMS. We have throttle data on each car now so if car transmits PWM over 0 before the stsart a penalty is awarded. These will be stop/go or timed penalties in the pit bay. You will have 3 laps to serve your penalty or you get disqualied. So once a penalty is set the rule the car should come in to pit. So the rule will be the system must detect say LB ID #17 followed by a 0 throttle value for say 10 m/s minimum. Once that happens the penalty is removed.

However to achieve cars throttle data we are now asking car to send and receive simultaneously. Something we havent done before. A specially written program shows the data coming in through the dongle including brake PWM, lane 1 or lane 2 ID, LB ID, change or no change command. Initial testing with 2 or 3 cars still gives perfect resolution to cars (ie control). Although I have no idea with 24 cars. The maths show data collisions are rare and retransmitted immediately regardless.

LB has 4 LEDS for 4 lanes lapcounting too. So that will cover a typical 2 lane track with pit lane and pit bays, (4 lanes).

Because there is a beacon for each pit bay, these can be used for segmental speed traps through pit lane. You would enter the physical distance between beacons and nominate the LB ID. So the system says if a car goes under x amount of seconds between say LB 7 and LB 8 then a penalty is issued to that car ID. Basically with our new channel 25 program we know exactly what every car is doing, which LB it last passed and when, which lane it is in, if it to change lanes or not, throttlevand brake data. Theres not much we wont be able to do. The issue here is lapcounting is currently on its own deicated channel to keep it clean. If I want to keep this luxury and run any program that needs channel 25 (ie real fuel, sector timing, calibrated pre recorded ghost cars) then another dongle is required

Everything can be jammed on 2 0r 3 channels, but sacrifices, albeit small would have to be made. This decision is still to be made. Its a trade off between accutracy and the price of an extra dongle. In any case 2 lots of car chip firmware could be available, one for home use, another for competitions, ie, receive only. If receive only fuel could still be on the RMS, but just not related to actual energy use.
We have 2 more channels left, channel 26 and 27...... 27 will be for ghost cars and safety car.

Rick

 

[diegu]

ZITAT(injectorman @ 6 May 2011, 09:38) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>[...]We have throttle data on each car now so if car transmits PWM over 0 before the stsart a penalty is awarded. [...]
Cool one. This is REAL false start detection.

...when I read the other features, I assume substantial implementation efforts will be needed...

Hope this does not delay delivery too much.

I could easily do without a lot of features in the first place, if this meant that the system is delivered earlier.

Regards,
Diegu

 

[JL-F1]

Another dongle.
At this point what is one more for all the added features and accuracy

 

[glengtl1]

Hi Rick as Dave said Keep it simple for now and adjust and amend as things go along unless you have a programmer chained to his pc in the room above your slot room.Be careful not to have so many attributes that it becomes hell to configure on the other hand if you add all the possible requests in but also have a section where you can select race weekend and you get practice session then an interval then qualy then an interval then race this is some thing i have set up with pc lap counter but using a seperate program to run pc lapcounter with all the extra little bit fancy bits i want .
maybe have the contols you have like in pcllapcounter so another program can control rms

cheers Glen

 

[injectorman]

Ok how about this for a function.....just put the cars in the grid, press race, go. The cars are entered into the RMS automatically as they each cross the start line for the first time. Of course each ID would just be a number, (no name) unless a name was associated with a particular ID number in a registry specially set up for this idea. Could it get any easier.
Latest addition, auto "did you know' tips. eg "did you know to remove a driver from the drivers list simply drag the name anywhere outside the box"

 

[Nigel Pendrigh]

Good idea Rick

KISS

Version 1 followed by version 2 of the software

If a new dongle provides the extra functionality (reliably) that is being requested, it seems the obvious way to go

It's all looking good and of course Well Done!!

 

[MrFlippant]

Drag and drop is inefficient. It's great to have it, but not when it's the only way to add drivers/cars/whatever to one list from another. It would be better, especially for big races, to be able to select multiple people/cars and drag the group, to be able to use the keyboard to tab or arrow down/up to a driver and hit enter to add them one at a time, or even to have a "select all" option to add the entire list to the next race.

 

[h00ch]

Pre-define heats? If the winner/top 3, etc move on the the next race, have that figured out by the software, so there's not so much fiddling between races.

 

[injectorman]

That would be nice Hooch, but probably not straight up.

Ok guys Ive just seen a beta test of the auto set up function for "Quick Race".
Just press Quick Race, then each driver practices or cruises around track, car IDs are automatically entered into the list! Line 'em up, press start, thats it. Go. So from go to whoa about 2 mouse clicks I hope, and thats from scratch. No names are entered, as it is just a quick race.
Want to program your best line? You can do this simultaneously to save time. Hmmm 2 dongles may be needed here.

Now the next stage, to transfer driver name on controller to RMS via car data. Then the name will also appear in the Quick Race set up. Now thats going to make my race nights much more enjoyable. Ill ask John can the system handle the extra data flow. Im guessing 50/50 we can get this one up.

And the next step if Im not asking too much is to have the ability to store data on the car chip, like when you bought it, where, how much, gear ratios, make, colour, livery, car number and more. Critical info like car type and colour can be also used in the RMS set up. Here I might be dreaming, once again Ill put it to John.

Rick

 

[boloko]

Hi all.

If i may put it, do as in real f1, with live timming for viewing computer engineers in their personal laptops and connected by headset. in the tv monitor of the club, general data to the public and pilots, as it as we see on our tv channels broadcasting the f1, rotational positions, gap, number of pit stops ... etc.

P.D. It is true that in our great events here in Spain, we usually have
any partner with us to help us manage the races.

Thanks for everything, Rick.

 

[injectorman]

Hi Boloko,
Wireless headset is on the list

Rick

 

[injectorman]

Ok latest on RMS
Gone are driver and car images. I need a simple screen with only CRITICAL info on it. Also now included on screen, black flag, fuel and pit speed.
False start or speed through the pits you get the black flag. You have 2 laps to serve your penalty or your disqualified. Drive through, stop'n'go and timed are all possible.

Rick

 

[h00ch]

That's a great start

 

[glengtl1]

It would be good to allow for break wear and aslo tire wear, have a % you select before race which would decrease brake as race goes on if you use them , but tyre wear would affect throttle respone out of corners and such, need that two way comms for this though.

 

[dda]

Rick,

How will your RMS manage pitlane entry/exit in combination with LBs involved : start/stop LB which will have one LED at some place in the pitlane and "pitlane" LB which should ideally take care of entry with one LED and also be able to take care of pitlane exit thanks to another LED ?

1) Can we install what we could call a "pitlane LB" (maybe a specific number to be defined for special configuration later) as defined above ?

2) Where should the pitlane start/stop LED ideally be placed on the pitlane : at the beginning, in the middle, at the end ? If the last option is the one, it could perhaps be possible to think about configuring a specific LED on the start/stop LB to act at the same time as pitlane exit and lap counting in the pitlane but this would mean that your lap would only be counted when exiting the pitlane. I don't know which one would be easier for you in terms of configuration and software.

Waiting for your precious infos,

Yup,

DDA

 

[injectorman]

Best I draw a diagram for this.
In short LEDs are used to trigger lane changers, but can be allocated to any function you like, eg pit lane entry, pit bay entry. Here one LB per flipper is needed to get a unique ID number but the last LEd in the pit lane could be vampired off an existing LB. Lane 1 LC beacon could be used for pit entry and Lane 2 LC beacon used for end of pit lane, the latter only good for speed detection.

So how does pit speed work. Our model is based on reality, ie driver has full control, initially it will be throttled controlled with pit speedo on RMS. Later we will add a function where you can hit say Menu button and that will set the car to a predetermined throttle setting 0-100. It wont be done 'automatically' or by resistors etc in circuitry.
Just enter a series of LB IDs down pit lane and enter the distance between them. Scorpius RMS will now detect average speed between LEDs and black flag you if you get busted. Black flag is on the screen too. For timed stop'n'go penalties the flag disappears right to left as the time decreases. When the black flag is empty you can resume racing. This black flag bar will also be used for tyres at a later date. The flag disappears immediately for stop'n'go once zero throttle is detected.
A pic of your pit lane would be beneficial.

Rick

 

[Nigel Pendrigh]

Are Pace Cars automatically by the software banned from entering the pit lane (but can still change lanes elsewhere)?