Transponder Hack
 

Mylaps transponders and lexan bodies are probably the biggest price gouging rip offs in the RC industry… has anyone reverse engineered the current mylaps transponders to offer a reasonably priced alternative? I’m thinking of digging into this. Any fellow EE’s or SE’s can message me to collaborate.

It’s a very simple RF transmitter. Unfortunately, I’m not a EE so I wouldn’t know what I’m looking at. I have a feeling it’s not the physical hardware that is the difficult part of replicating, though.

In the few minutes I’ve spent researching this, it appears a couple of guys on here have already done this. We need an updated hack for the current version mylaps.

MRT, but MyLaps actively tries to block their usage. If the MyLaps decoder firmware is up to date, it'll reject an MRT transponder.

We use the Orange Lap Rc transponders at our track and they’re only $25 a pop. Which seems realistic given what they are and how many you could get made on a panel. Mylaps just pots the same thing in a 2cent plastic case and marks it up $100. Given how much we want more people to enter the hobby, shouldn’t the RC community be pushing for the Orange Lap version instead?

Sure, who would not like lower prices for everything in this hobby? But Mylaps has after all designed and developed the whole timing system, not just the transponder. Plus I don't think it's a very high volume business, and after all they need to keep their workers and developers paid. For others then to go and say "oh thanks guys for creating all that. Now we will just steal your design for the easy part and take away your profits from your design and invention" is kinda shady. It's what people criticize about China all the time...

Even more funny, considering what racers are ready and willing to pay for servos, ESCs or especially tires, but a transponder (that will usually last for years, if not decades and can be easily swapped between cars) is waaaay toooo expensive? Remember, you only really need one to race (any more than that is just convenience, if you have more than one car.) I do own several - for my convenience - and yes, they were quite expensive, but it was my own choice after the first one, so I cannot really blame anyone but myself.

But they don’t last decades. Many of them “go bad” before too long without any sort of warning. In the middle of your race the announcer will let you know you’re skipping laps, and by the next heat it doesn’t pick up laps at all. I hear it all the time at races, maybe not every race weekend, but it’s quite common to hear people having transponder issues. It might not be a faulty transponder every time but my point is you shouldn’t assume they last a decade.

My first one has reached a decade now - still runs perfect. Haven't had a defect on any of mine yet, either. But my servos, ESCs and motors also seem to work much longer than some of the doom-sayers here on RCtech claim possible ("you have to change ESC every x months!"). Still. let's say it'll run only... 5? or only 3? years. You still only ever really need a single one that you can use in any car and swapping takes only a few seconds. How much money do you spend on other electronics or tires in the same time period?

The only ones I've had go bad were fixed by replacing the plug. It's almost never the transponder itself, it's either the plug or the lead.

As someone who ran race control myself, most of the time when people were having transponder issues it was almost always because they were mounting them sideways (MyLaps says they must my mounted flat) and on top of the receiver antenna (MyLaps says keep away from antennas). Moving the mounting location generally solved the issue. The only other noteworthy cause for missed transponder laps was the decoder loop itself being damaged. We race outdoors and the elements can get to it despite being buried in the track.

MRT transponders are a decent alternative to MyLaps - but they only work on decoders that still support RC3 and haven't had the firmware update to make them RC4 only.

MRT are allegedly working on their own decoder (according to a Facebook comment I saw - not the most reliable source I know!)

Bless your heart. There’s a reason why a few guys on here have designed there own “Orange Laps RC”. Transponder technology is not that fancy in the engineering world. Competition is a good thing. I’m curious why you’re so supportive of Mylaps? Do you work for them or have a vested interest?

Funny thing about MyLaps - they didn't bring anything original to the table. An RF tranponder is about 70 years old, and miniaturized versions are decades old. There are open-source programs out there that do timing and their receiver box/pc interface isn't exactly new or unique. It's a radio receiver that has a loop antenna (You AM/Shortwave/HAM guys might know this) that transmits information packets to the PC by a serial protocol over either USB, a serial port, or a 10BaseT connection. Hardly anything groundbreaking and certainly not worth the extravagant cost.

Amen!

We use Mylaps in almost all forms of motorsports. Race car guys still hoard old non-subscription transponders, because they still work. Just be glad AMB hasn't started doing that with RC transponders. There is an aftermarket for old non-sub AMBs and a racecar wired version fetches $500-850 now. I bought 2 around 2000 for $250 bucks.

Most RC racers are actively using up to a half dozen transponders at a time. Racer's investing $100-600 in equipment that last many years is probably marketed correctly.

I've worked on many open source projects (drone projects) and they rarely cost justify. Yes in the end maybe a few dozen guys will benefit without investing any time, but the few guys that did all the work rarely will reap any benefit.