gusdepaulasd

Good morning, I don't understand very well.
For the MLA30+ to work on your decoder, did you have to add this blue preamplifier? would it be this ?

zouky23

hello, for the mla30+, i didn't make modification on the decoder, it will work directly. Just usb5v on the biasing tee, antenna to antenna, out to decoder and it should work.
The blue amp is used to have more signal because i have a looooonnnnggg cable between my loop and decoder.
Good Luck
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** It's my 2nd mla30, the 1st one didn't worked... Try with an oscilloscope

gusdepaulasd

Cool, I understand now. How do you place this LCD display on the decoder?

theaboutdoors

Good day all!

First off thanks to original maker of this project!!

I've tried searching a few time now, and can't seem to find what I'm looking for so here goes a few questions:
1. Does anyone make these and send them for "donations"
2. if not is there a list of part numbers to make everything needed?
Feel free to PM me
Thanks in advance!

mv4wd

Unfortunately the loop amplifier and decoder part share the same component numbering (most coming from original Cano Design). You can find part list in original Howard Cano design files for the loop amp. This is not a supplier code list (with Farnell or Mouser codes for example). Right now I'm not aware of anybody making them for donation. To be hones I've received just a few donation notifications (to charities as stated in the project license) from a few gentlemens.

gusdepaulasd

Good afternoon guys, finally everything is working, it's wonderful. I managed to make it work with the mla30+, I bought the mla again and this time it worked, I believe the first one I bought was a fake, the second one was even finished and much better. The rc4 hibryd transponder is always registering with poor quality, while the rc4 pure is registering with good quality. This week I'm going to have the frieze made on the track to place the loop, my track is 4 meters wide so I'm going to make a 4x0.3 m loop, is this a good size? Thank you very much to everyone who is helping me.

andreas78

Glad you've got it sorted out! In my experience, it's normal that the hybrids have worse quality, it's because they send both protocols, RC3 and RC4 alternating, therefore each not as often as the "pure" transponders.
For your loop, I also used the same dimensions and it worked well.

Andi

mv4wd

Glad you sorted out your problems! The hybrid learn process is always lower in quality than pure Rc4 since one every 4 packet sent by the transponder is the 'old style' one, not valid in the 'learn' process. What really matters is the number of hits you get when the car passes the loop at race speed. This gives a clue of your safety margin for missed laps. Of course a lot of factors contribute to the number (loop size, transponder locatio, car speed etc). Also I see that it's better to learn with the transponder near the wire instead of in the middle of the loop.

gusdepaulasd

Guys, I finally managed to test the equipment on the track.
It worked perfectly, no missed laps, no fastama transponders detected.
I used the original decoder for the loop I used the MLA30+, 4.5m * 0.3m loop.
It worked fantastically, I'm very happy.
After a long time I managed to make everything work perfectly.

I have some questions that I think you can help me with.

1st, how could I put an LCD display on the decoder to show the transponder number that passed, number of hits, etc...
I saw that some people managed it but I didn't find how I could do it.

2° This question is simpler, lol.
The mla30+ has a beasing tee, I could incorporate this beasing tee together with the decoder so that it is outside my decoder box instead of the loop box itself.
I honestly don't think there will be any problems because everyone who uses the mla30 places this beasing tee glued to the decoder box, but it's better to ask than to have to do unnecessary work.

I thank everyone.

andreas78

Congratulations!
Always nice to read that someone was successful!
I was working on something like that, but it's not completely done yet. You need a small Arduino (Nano or Mini) and some little OLED display. Connect the Arduino's serial to the auxiliary serial output of the decoder. You need to activate it with the configuration tool. The Arduino receives the passage information and you need to parse the serial data to get the transponder number, number of hits and so on. The Arduino just prints that information on the display.
When I was working on it, I found a little bug which Mario quickly fixed, but I never tested it afterwards. Projects come and go, you know ;-)
I think I might have some code from a french guy somewhere, which was way shorter than mine and did exactly that, show the ID and the number of hits.

On my first decoder, I put the biasing tee right next to the decoder board and I think I powered it directly to the USB 5V of the decoder. But I need to check on that.
My second decoder, I didn't use the the biasing tee at all and couldn't really tell the difference, works too. But that was with the "old" MLA30.

Andi

gusdepaulasd

Thanks for the quick response.

About the lcd it's really something simple that I wanted, just to have a better build quality.
If you find something and can give me some tips on how to do it, I would appreciate it.

About the beasing tee I thought there wouldn't be any problems, I'll do that too, thank you very much for your support.

Styxxx

Interesting. I'm getting things ready to build another RC Hourglass setup.

How do I spot the difference between new and old MLA30+?
Does both work?

gusdepaulasd

Good morning. I honestly don't know the difference between the new and the old, I believe mine is the new. I will send the link to what I bought and it is working very well.

https://pt.aliexpress.com/item/1005004646036671.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.order_l ist_main.83.75f2caa4oEGPz6&gatewayAdapt=glo2bra

gusdepaulasd

Good morning everybody.
I know the project doesn't receive updates in time, but who knows, I'll be excited.
It would be really cool to have a new firmware where it is not necessary to register the RC4 transponders on most tracks today the drivers have RC4, at least in Brazil.

Would this be too complex to resolve?
Anyway, it's just my curiosity.
Thank you all

mv4wd

The RC4 packet format has not been decoded, so the 'learn' function is the only way to go at the moment. There're have been no news so far so the decoder firmware is up to date.