DIY Lap Timing System?

[SRacin]

Hello,

I have recent been looking into lap timer systems (circuit racing application) and have not been able to find any thing reasonably priced! I would have thought there would be some kind of jaycar kit for this, but have also not been able to find anything?

Anybody know of anything suitable, and cheap.
Cheers
Logan

[TA-022]

"Search and ye shall find"

http://www.toymods.net/forums/showth...ighlight=timer

[SRacin]

cheers, yea i searched lap + timer and "lap timer" to no avail. Thanks for that.

[Rex_Kelway]

Hi SRacin,

Rex made himself one out of a Dick(head) Smiths stopwatch. He basically just extended the start/lap buttons out to the steering wheel via that curled telephone reciever cable stuff.

The stopwatch He used has the most important part, A TEN LAP MEMORY!!! This means that during the average 20min session He can do 2 warm-up laps then get a record of the next 10 laps.

Its not a laser guided, atomic, hyper lap timer but it works very well for the $50 it cost to make.

All you have to do is just find a reference point on the track, IE when the start-line disappears from sight as you drive over it. Rex estimates that after about 5 laps you could get the accuracy down to half a meter or so.


Rex

[Talasas]

Surely there is something that the circuit people have implemented that the high end race cars use, I can't see it being efficient (or fair) if every car/team had to use their own timing system.

[DigitalPho3nix]

Surely there is something that the circuit people have implemented that the high end race cars use, I can't see it being efficient (or fair) if every car/team had to use their own timing system.

Yeah, it's called MoTeC.

A receiver is mounted on the pit-wall side of the car and a trigger is put on the pit wall approx. parallel to the start/finish line. As the car goes past, the receiver gets triggered and the lap is registered in the MoTeC dash.

Not a cheap system, but worth every penny. The dash unit itself is worth about $5000.

[Hiro]

my old Nike watch had a 250 lap memory.....just the thing for doing lap-times around Bathurst or Le Mans

[haison]

Someone in the bicycle trade may be able to jog my memory with this one.. but there was a timer that was released that fit to your handlebar with a big red start stop button. It was like a thin cylinder with a small screen displaying time and the button next to it. I think it might've been Shimano that made em but I can't find anything on their website.
I know it exists cause a lot of downhillers were using em.
But yeah it's small, and can be fitted just about anywhere.
Dunno about lap memories though.

[YLD-16L]

Someone in the bicycle trade may be able to jog my memory with this one.. but there was a timer that was released that fit to your handlebar with a big red start stop button. It was like a thin cylinder with a small screen displaying time and the button next to it. I think it might've been Shimano that made em but I can't find anything on their website.
I know it exists cause a lot of downhillers were using em.
But yeah it's small, and can be fitted just about anywhere.

I have one (from the downhill days) and am going to pop it on my steering wheel for the moment. It's no good for mutliple lap events though as it doesn't have a lap function, come to think of it it doesn't even time 1/100th of a second or even tenths so it's pretty crude really.

I might just pilfer the button and wire from it and do a set up like Mr Rex did. Off to DSE at lunch time today for a look.

[takai]

Someone in the bicycle trade may be able to jog my memory with this one.. but there was a timer that was released that fit to your handlebar with a big red start stop button. It was like a thin cylinder with a small screen displaying time and the button next to it. I think it might've been Shimano that made em but I can't find anything on their website.
I know it exists cause a lot of downhillers were using em.
But yeah it's small, and can be fitted just about anywhere.
Dunno about lap memories though.

Yeah, there used to be a Shimano one with a fairly huge lap memory. Its not produced anymore :S because us DHers loved it.
We were talking about this recently on Farkin though, and came to the conclusion that the system which Rex and I run is probably the easiest.

Here is a howto on their wiki:
http://www.farkin.net/wiki/index.php...._DH_Stopwatch

Im considering investigating finding a watch sized one and doing up a similar thing for the watch sized unit.

EDIT: there seems to be a guy who might be getting some in again. Will keep you guys updated.

I have one (from the downhill days) and am going to pop it on my steering wheel for the moment. It's no good for mutliple lap events though as it doesn't have a lap function, come to think of it it doesn't even time 1/100th of a second or even tenths so it's pretty crude really.

I might just pilfer the button and wire from it and do a set up like Mr Rex did. Off to DSE at lunch time today for a look.

Hey, instead of pilfering the wire from it, how about i build you one of the Rex/Farkin setups and we can trade. I really want another one of the Shimano units.

Surely there is something that the circuit people have implemented that the high end race cars use, I can't see it being efficient (or fair) if every car/team had to use their own timing system.

Yeah, it's called MoTeC.

A receiver is mounted on the pit-wall side of the car and a trigger is put on the pit wall approx. parallel to the start/finish line. As the car goes past, the receiver gets triggered and the lap is registered in the MoTeC dash.

Not a cheap system, but worth every penny. The dash unit itself is worth about $5000.

Actually its called Dorian. Most of the racing in Australia uses individually coded Dorian timers.

[FMS01]

I have been looking for an accurate DIY system of lap timing for ages without luck. Seeing this thread prompted me to have a bit of a search on the interweb again and I came across this site.
HarrysLapTimer

This guy has written some software for Palm OS to run on your Palm E2 or similar and you have a bluetooth or USB GPS mouse feeding data through the software that then gets displayed on the screen.



Looks great and heaps of useful features by the look of it:

Manual Lap Timer
* Beautiful analog timer display with both a minute and a second hand
* Brand your LapTimer by adding your car’s or motocycle’s manufacturer’s logo to the timer plate
* Realistic simulation of analog clockwork, utilizing animation and realistic sound / tick per second
* Precise digital display of lapped time with a precision of 1/100 second
* Two skins, one with a white clock face and one with a black clock face
* Record and view your lapped times by track
* View how you optimize your time. Best times and all time best times are colored blue / red
* Countdown ticks and animation to best lap so far with adjustable countdown volume
* Stop / Go mode and intermediate times
* Manage your vehicles list and associate a vehicle to each timed lap
* Localized Time and measurement system (Metric and English)
* Comparison of intermediate and full lap times utilizing a bar chart
* Calculation of virtually best lap time (based on intermediates / sector times)

GPS Data Recording incl. Lateral Acceleration
* Optional GPS Support (receiver required)
* Position, speed, height, course etc. are recorded while you’re lapping
* Watch the recorded track, zoom in and out
* Zoom in and watch the calculated lateral acceleration (G)
* Export recording to a JPEG file
* Extensive CSV export of laps timed and GPS recordings
* New in 5.0:
* Racer’s view with “shadow mode”: view your current position compared to reference lap
* Added view with last straight’s top speed and last curve’s lowest speed
* Biker’s view with large digital readout to make it easier to view



So I'm thinking to myself...."bet this isn't cheap"

Palm E2 PDA $150-$200 on flebay
Bluetooth GPS receiver $60 to $90 on flebay
Laptimer software USD$17

so $200-300ish.

I reckon thats cheap as considering the capabilities of it!

All I have to do then is find some clever programmer type to combine the .csv export file from this with the .csv export from my Gtech pro RR so I've got RPM's and proper G force data!

I asked what his recommendations were for the Palm and GPS specs and this was his answer for those who consider doing this:
"I suggest a Palm E2 (large screen and bluetooth capability) and any
bluetooth GPS mouse with a SirfIII chip. For the later one: take the
cheapest."

Cheers,
Julian.

PS. Anyone recognise the "timer" face he has copied?
PPS. Lucky bastard seems to live near the 'Ring judging by the amount of photos in his gallery.

[SRacin]

Im waiting for the designers of this wicked little unit...

http://www.linkecu.com/products/TuningTools/DisplayLink

to integrate lap time. I run a LEM G3 which can take digital inputs so am currently hassling the designers to start programming it!

Thanks for all the responses.

Logan

[YLD-16L]

I picked up a 10 lap timer from DSE today ($29), I'll fit the remote button and mount the timer somewhere nice and try it out next week.

Should be fine for what I want.

Takai, do you really want the Shimano one? You know the one I have is the simple looking thing with no lap memory, small display, a short black wire and a red button?

[haison]

Oh just remembered another thing we trialed at work for a lil while.
Seems pretty funky.

http://www.frwd.fi/

[SRacin]

\Here is another locally (NZ) made and designed product. One of the Hardware Design Engineers at work had some envolvment with this product and is hitting up the designers about lap timing and costs when implemented..

http://www.monit.co.nz/index.html