Free practice software for tracks equipped with a Mylaps RC4 decoder.

http://ourlaps.blogspot.com/

Just a hobby project.

You made this app? Works great and shows lap times on your phone. I just need to remember to activate app when I run the car.

Yes, I made this. Happy to hear that it works for you.

There are many improvements that can be made. Feedback is welcome.

Some things I would like to do next:

• Server broadcast of ip address. eliminiate need to enter ip by hand
• Client configuration of how many decimals places to display/say for lap times.
• Class configuration dialog (it's all on-road at the moment)
• Report feature (currently in experimental OurlapsLite), so if you forgot to start the app or there was connection problem, you can get your session after the fact.

Very cool.

So if I go to my own track, what information do I need to know and what equipment must be switched on?

You need a computer, a wireless router and some ethernet cables.

For the computer, if it is older than xp, it won't for sure. If it's xp, it may work depending on how old it is. Windows 7 and up you are probably ok. There is an experimental/untested Lite version that runs on anything that supports .NET 4.0, even a Raspberry Pi, preferably model 2.

A wireless router, I do recommend dual band 5ghz/2.4ghz, some of those radios there blast the 2.4 spectrum (especially on super busy controlled practice days before a big race). I have used this $40 TP-LINK TL-WDR3500 Wireless N600 Dual Band Router one with good results.

You need to know the ip address of the RC4 decoder. I recommend setting the network to automatic. How to do this is in the rc4 manual. Reserving an ip address for decoder (and the computer running ourlaps) is also a good idea. You can find the mac address of the decoder right below where it shows the software version number.

There is some documentation in the installer package (installed to My Documents\Ourlaps) which probably needs to be improved upon. But there you can read about how to run a "fake session" away from the track, useful for testing computer and router setups.

That's great!

That's exactly what I was working on... Are you planning to commercialize it or to publish the sources?

Could you please publish your fake data files?

thanks!

I don't want to commercialize it. I wanted to focus on practice and maybe a quick "buddy race". For real races, RCScoringPro and liveRC works really well and lots of people/tracks/race directors have already paid for that and know how to use it.

I will release code eventually. I want to change my architecture slightly so other decoders can be supported first (Cano, paylneg).

Fake live data is included in the installer, ends up in "My Documents\Ourlaps\DecoderData".

Thanks a lot!

That's excellent!

Are you using a small database to keep the sessions or the old ones are deleted when a new session starts?

I think it could be great to have the possibility to display all the laps of the last session of a pilot... Is there already a way to do that that I miss?

On the ios/android client there is a database which stores all the laps in the results tab.

The experimental OurlapsLiteclient creates a .csv file as a log instead and also has the ability to create a report from whatever the server has in memory at the time (from command line run "OurlapsLiteClient <ourlaps server ip> <transponder> report"). Typically it would be the report for that day. This would be good to get on the mobile clients as well. Apple is such a pain to deal with that I'd like to bundle up as many changes as possible before I submit an update.

On the server side they are just stored as raw data which can be re-parsed. I should make it so the server looks for capture data from that day and loads that up into memory on startup so you don't lose the morning session in case you need to restart the app (app crash, generator goes down etc).

I might not have mentioned it, but there is a magic transponder number. In the transponder/car settings, name it spectate and give it transponder number 00000 and you get a live view. However in this mode it does not store the results to the database.

Also, if you have a USB stick, label it OURLAPS. It will copy all the decoder data from the server to the stick automatically (and announce copy completed when it is done).

I saw this at Tamiya last week. Work well for most at the facility. Didn't work for me though. Torg, thank you for trying to help me get the app to work. I had the Toshiba tablet without 2.5 or 5.0 gigahertz technology . I'm sure you will perfect it with time. Thanks again.

I'm sorry we couldn't get it figured out. Next time I hopefully have more time to help you out. One way or another we usually get it to work.

At Tamiya America Raceway, if your device is connected on the 2.4ghz spectrum and it is a very busy day at the track... you may see a strong signal from the powerful outdoor access point, but it can't see your device. For instance I can not operate my gopro over wifi on race days and especially not on controlled practice days.

This thread would be a good place to share device tricks. Here are a few for Android:

• Many Android devices have a feature where they disconnect from a wifi network if they see it doesn't have internet (which the Ourlaps wifi would not have).
• Sprint has something called a "connection optimizer" which does something similar.
• Some devices do wifi and bluetooth on the same chip and you need to turn off bluetooth for wifi to be stable.

Due to all these OS, Carrier and manufacturer variations it is very hard to come up with a "one solution fits all", google around see what works. If you find a solution, please share.

On iOS things are (now) more stable after Ourlaps started playing a silent audio file to prevent the OS from killing the app! Apple is an absolute pain to deal with as a developer and I have to pay $100/year just to be in the app store... don't get me started...

My mobile device is a Lumia 920 (Windows Phone) so leave me out of the Android vs iOS war! I never published the windows phone app to the store because nobody else ever asked for it (since it has such tiny market share). I will make a windows 10 universal app when that comes out.

Just for you to know, I installed your software at the track during the race today at a local track. Guys there were very pleased with Ourlaps, especially with the voice-enabled server and the iphone app...

I tried to run the Android app, but it crashes everytime I launch it. I suppose that's because my Note4 is running lollipop. I submitted a crash report... Hope it could help you debug it...

Cool product
Have you seen this new track decoder, lap counter setup from Europe ?
http://www.lapsnapper.com/
Looks to be great for backyard tracks since the cost of entry is so low compared to mylaps decoders .
Would be cool to be able to compare both track times on one readout .
See if your tuning at home helps out on the main track .
If the Euro gets a little lower to the dollar ............

Thank you for testing it. I see the crash report.

on my android 4.4 device the SQLite query looks like this:
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS Car(_id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT,maxlap INTEGER,minlap INTEGER,name TEXT,transponder TEXT)

on your lolly it looks like:
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS Car(name TEXT PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT,transponder TEXT,_id INTEGER,maxlap INTEGER,minlap INTEGER)


public class Car {
public int _id;
public String name;
public String transponder;
public int minlap;
public int maxlap;

@Override
public String toString() {
return name;
}
}


public String createTableFromFields(Class c, String append)
{
String name=c.getSimpleName();
Field[] fields=c.getFields();
String str="CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS "+name+"(";
for(int i=0;i<fields.length;i++)
{
Field field=fields[i];
String fieldName = field.getName();
str+=fieldName+" ";
Object fieldType = field.getType();
if(fieldType.equals(Integer.TYPE))
str+="INTEGER";
if(fieldType.equals(Double.TYPE))
str+="REAL";
else if(fieldType.equals(String.class))
str+="TEXT";
else if(fieldType.equals(Date.class))
str+="DATETIME";

if(i==0)
{
str+=" PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT";
}

if(i<fields.length-1)
str+=",";
}

if(append!=null)
{
str+=","+append;
}

str+=")";
return str;
}

public void onCreate(SQLiteDatabase db) {
// Enable foreign key constraints
db.execSQL("PRAGMA foreign_keys = ON;");

// Category table create query
String cars=createTableFromFields(Car.class,null);
db.execSQL(cars);

kablammo on your device...



Javadoc for Class.getFields() say: "The elements in the array returned are not sorted and are not in any particular order."

well that's just lovely... another reason to dislike java..

Nope, haven't seen it. But I think that it is great that there are more options out there.

I use Mylaps RC4 transponders only as this is what all the tracks around me have decoders for.