Race Capture Power usage and Lap trigger questions

cpovelones · Post by **cpovelones** » Thu Jan 17, 2013 10:30 pm

I'm thinking about getting the Race Capture Pro and I have some questions.

What is the power usage of the unit? Besides putting it on a racecar, I'm thinking about using it on a kart also and want to know how big of a battery I might need to power it. What is the minimum voltage that the unit can operate at? If my battery drops below 12v am I in trouble?

The unit is GPS, so how do I choose where the start finish line is? is there a trigger for is or something? its a bit different than just placing an ir beacon on the track.

Post by **brentp** » Sat Jan 19, 2013 10:37 pm

Hi cpovelones,

Power usage for Race Capture Pro is very low, well under 1A (100-200ma is realistic). Minimum voltage is about 5V; you can run the system on your desktop connected over USB.

Selecting the start / finish line is by specifying a spot on the earth via latitude / longitude points and specifying the diameter of the spot. The spot must be large enough to trigger while the vehicle in in that spot, but not so big that it will trigger on an adjacent part of the track.

Hope this helps!

rushy · Post by **rushy** » Wed Mar 06, 2013 6:44 pm

Is it possible to still use an IR beacon or a Magnetic strip pick up?

How does a lap get defined? Does the logger carry on with a timestamp, or does it start again from 0.0 each lap?

Post by **brentp** » Thu Mar 07, 2013 9:35 pm

RaceCapture uses a user-configured GPS coordinates to define the start/finish line and split time targets. The way it gets set up is via the software application. Lap counts, lap times and split times are tracked in the log file along with the other data.

cpovelones -

RaceCapture/Pro requirements are low. The unit consumes 100mA when running - you can even power it with a small battery, to support scenarios like karting and similar.

GTIspirit · Post by **GTIspirit** » Sun Mar 10, 2013 11:56 am

brentp wrote: Selecting the start / finish line is by specifying a spot on the earth via latitude / longitude points and specifying the diameter of the spot. The spot must be large enough to trigger while the vehicle in in that spot, but not so big that it will trigger on an adjacent part of the track.

Hope this helps!

Sounds simple enough in theory, but in practice, how does one get these GPS coordinates? Stand at the Start and Finish lines of the autocross, or at the S/F line of the race track and grab the GPS coordinates with a smart phone? And then they have to be entered into the Race Capture Pro unit before starting the event?

If the GPS coordinates have to be grabbed externally (because driving your car/kart to the Start and/or Finish lines before the event isn't so practical), instead of specifying a point and diameter, which could yield different lap times depending on where the circle was crossed, how about specifying two points on either side of the S/F and when the vehicle crosses the line, from either direction, a lap is triggered.

cng1 · Post by **cng1** » Sun Mar 10, 2013 12:48 pm

What you'll find will happen is that for any given circuit people will start to publish the data so that everyone can use the same coordinates. All it needs is for the first person to grab the coordinates using the logger, google maps and upload them to a circuit database (perhaps in the racecapture wiki?). What is great is that if the public database includes some sector boundaries then as long as everyone is using the same data you can compare your lines/times with everyone else.

GTIspirit · Post by **GTIspirit** » Tue Mar 12, 2013 9:21 am

Sounds reasonable to keep a list of S/F line location, especially since there is already a Race Capture Pro Wiki.

I'm guessing that specifying a point and proximity to that point for S/F triggering is easier for coding than specifying a line to cross with two points.

The big question is how easy is it to enter the GPS coordinates for S/F? Because for autocross use you won't know the start and finish location until course walk. I supported the bluetooth option so I'm hoping that eventually there will be a smart phone app to do some basic functions like specify start recording trigger conditions and GPS coordinates. Would be great if we didn't have to lug around a laptop to events for these basic functions.

Viewing data on the smart phone would be even better!

Post by **brentp** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 3:35 am

Here's the section of the software manual that talks about configuring start/stop finish line as well as the split time.
http://www.autosportlabs.net/RaceCaptur ... figuration

Note, the mobile app will replicate all of the configuration features of the regular app, appropriately expressed for a mobile / tablet app. It will be very, very cool.

Post by **brentp** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 3:37 am

But - in the meantime, you can just plop in latitude / longitude coordinates ahead of time just by using google maps.

Navigate to the race track in google maps, right click on the start/finish line and select "what's here". Voila, latitude / longitude selected.

select a target radius of 0.0002 - 0.0005 degrees to start off with, that will give you a generously sized target.

dimondjack · Post by **dimondjack** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 3:32 pm

Is it possible to put in more than one split location? It looks like only one will be available based on the configuration screenshot. I'd like to have 3 splits for some of the tracks I race at if possible.

Post by **brentp** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 6:47 pm

Hi dimondjack,

We're planning on multiple splits in a future update. Thanks for the feedback!

GTIspirit · Post by **GTIspirit** » Thu Mar 14, 2013 10:07 am

brentp wrote:Here's the section of the software manual that talks about configuring start/stop finish line as well as the split time.
http://www.autosportlabs.net/RaceCaptur ... figuration

Note, the mobile app will replicate all of the configuration features of the regular app, appropriately expressed for a mobile / tablet app. It will be very, very cool.

Thanks for the link to the software manual, I didn't realize it was available yet.

For autocross use, since the S/F line are not the same, will there be a configuration update sometime in the future or should we use the S/F as the Start and the Split location for the Finish? I thought about it, and for autocross use the elapsed time doesn't have to be so accurate, it's the data such as cornering, braking, rpm, that are important.

Post by **brentp** » Thu Mar 14, 2013 1:38 pm

Right now you can use the start/finish line as the starting point and the split time as the finish for calculating lap times. In the future we'll have additional split times you can use to for different parts of the track.

The plans for the mobile app will let you set split time markers so you can walk around course and tag corners, and then upload it to the RaceCapture/Pro configuration!

CRF · Post by **CRF** » Thu Apr 11, 2013 2:13 am

When I get to a new track, I would like my unit to automatically pick a start/finish line, and then use it for the rest of the weekend. We have found in the past the the average speed around the start/finish line at tracks we normally race at is about 100 mph. Afterwards, I could switch it to some other location, but this should work as a good starting point. The documentation for the getGpsStartFinish() is currently not defined, so I'm not sure what value it will return if not currently defined.

If no start/finish is define, the first time the car goes over 100 should be the start/finish line. Would the following script work?

function onTick()
if getGpsStartFinish() = nil then
if getGpsSpeed() > 100 then
setGpsSpartFinish()
end
end
end

Also, once the StartFinish is set using setGpsSpartFinish(), will this value stay until I reset it, or overwrite it with another setGpsSpartFinish()?

Carl

GTIspirit · Post by **GTIspirit** » Thu Apr 11, 2013 2:39 am

brentp wrote: Navigate to the race track in google maps, right click on the start/finish line and select "what's here". Voila, latitude / longitude selected.

I seem to be smartphone challenged. Just got a Droid RAZR HD and can't seem to figure out how to "rick click" to get the GPS coordinates of my current location. Any hints from Android and Google Maps users?