kartyboy94

Gidday Everyone!

My Name is Luke, I am relatively new here. I come from New Zealand, and am currently working on a new project which i would love some feedback on!

I am working on a personal Lap Timing system, with the aim of being a portable system, that the average racer can use at tracks where timing is not available for practise, i order to have their own way of monitoring lap times without having to worry about club timing gear.

At the moment, I have the following specifications:

-must be able to replay laps in "sessions"
-will display current lap, fastest lap, and average lap of the current session
-Enable lap times to be saved to an SD card to enable exporting to a PC
-Simple 4 button and LCD screen operation, much like most chargers
-Totally portable! runs off of AA batteries or similar
-Will require a Infrared Transponder, similar to the Robitronics system


My questions for you are:

1) Do you see a need/do you see this taking off?

2) Are there any other features that you think may be helpful

3) Would a Smartphone Bluetooth App be helpful to relay lap information to a smartphone on the drivers stand?

4) What sort of $$$ value would you pay for such a system if it was to become comercially available



The unit is currently a work in progress, but your feedback would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers,
Luke Prattley

howardcano

iTrader: (37)

Hi Luke,

You might get more feedback if you post this in the Radio and Electronics section. Or not.

This thread may contain some useful information:
http://www.rctech.net/forum/radio-el...g-decoder.html

Good luck on your project!

kartyboy94

Thanks for the link! Looks like a bit of good information there, will have a read!

sosidge

Such a system WAS available more than ten years ago - look up the Alex Racing Hakarunjer and Team Orion Pro LCS. The fact that they have not been available for a very long time with no replacements or rivals gives an idea of the size of the market.

I think it is a great project, but don't expect to make your first million from it... One thing I would suggest is to make the link to a smartphone in the first place, rather than a PC.

Scott B

iTrader: (47)

There's also the dirt champ system...

http://www.dirtchampdesign.com/newsite/

WheelNut

iTrader: (5)

Yes, I think it is a good idea. Price is going to be a major sticking point (obviously) if you want this to make waves in the market. I would be interested in picking up a system like this. Keep it simple, easy to use, and inexpensive. It would be nice to have it based on and Rf signal instead of IR. Direct output to a smart phone would be awesome. Messing around with uploading things from memory cards is a pain- I would want this thing to be stupid easy to use. If the phone could read out the lap times via headphones while you're driving it would be really good!

Rick Hohwart

The Dirt Champ system works great because it gives you allow of the lap times directly rather than having to rely on the track scoring system. Even if you can print out your times at the track, the DCD allows you to export them directly to Excel, make notes within the file, etc.

For practice and testing, the system is a must have if you want to know your lap times and not rely on the track system.

Johnny Wishbone

iTrader: (6)

There is also a App available for single car timing using your smart phone only.

robk

iTrader: (22)

If you can figure a way to use a smartphone to do all the work, and develop a USB plug in counter - either IR or RF, that might be a way to keep the price down. The Orion counter works great, and people paid before the advent of the personal transponder. You would see 10 or more Orion lap counters lined up at the big races during practice. Now that demand is lower, if you can keep the price point reasonable, you could probably tap the smaller market of bashers and guys who are practicing where scoring is not available at all times.

kartyboy94

Cheers for the ideas guys, Am thinking the Bluetooth/smartphone integration is going to be the biggest thing!

stro3579

iTrader: (20)

How much do these go for? Site doesn't say

terry.sc

All the prices here:
http://www.stormerhobbies.com/cgi-bi...umb=on&smode=0

JayL

is dirtchamp discontinued? seem like nobody ever has them

Robert_K

iTrader: (2)

1) like other said, Team Orion one is discontinued, and really hard to get.

2) a beep to confirm it has seem the 'car' like the Orion had. Else your run was useless

3) I know Mylaps has this app that has a spoken laptime for your phone. You can put a headset on. I think it's nice but not a must.

4) arround $100 I think.

Like others also said, when you can keep it cheap I think a lot of drivers are willing to get a set. I'm searching for a Team Orion device for years and still haven't found a nice piece.

The specs you show makes me want to have one!

Regards Robert

WheelNut

iTrader: (5)

Kartboy94- Please make sure your system isn't $360.