I have tried Laptimer 2000 and just cant seem to get the parallel or any intewrface for that matter to work. Thinking about the Trakemate solution. Anyone care to share there experiance with either of these two pieces of software?

I am new (again) to slotcars and wish to build a killer 2 lane HO setup. The timer seems to be the only piece missing missing with the exception of my compolsivelly growing slot car collection...Damn Ebay.

Thanks in advance......

Thor

I use Trakmate and like it.

'doba

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I'm using Laptimer 2000 with phototransistors hooked to the parallel port of an ancient IBM PC. Works very well for me.

I use trakmate windows version on my 4 lane oval and really like all the features. I also use Laptimer 2000 on my 2 lane road track and have had no problems with it. Both of my systems use the infra-red sensors and work to perfection. The trakmate on the oval is the feature system and track since that is where I host races with a number of drivers and it seems to have more features for that aspect of racing. Mike

Thor.....

I am in the same boat as you.I use Laptimer,but have had a lot of problems with it.I have it set up now and it works,but not 100%.

If I figured my time as money,it would have been cheaper to have just gotten the Laptimer setup.Down the road I probably will.

Ive heard nothing but good about it.

Mike

Hi Mike.....did you try the trick with the reed switches? That setup, using Laptimer 2000, is still working flawlessly for all cars, bone-stock skinny-tire T-jets through full polymer cars.

Hello Gene :wave:

You know,I forgot I had read about using the reed switches.I may do that as my last ditch effort before 86ing the LT software altogether.

A few months back,I thought that using dead strips with LT would be the solution to my missed lap problem I was having.
Not the case.ANd very frustrating I might add.

Gene....Will you be at the SHORS race thats coming up next week??????I may pop in depending on if my band is playing or not that night.

Mike

Thanks For your input. The IR Sensors from what I read on this and other forums seem to either work just fine or are a black hole of tweaking. I did finally get the software to work on my Parallel port and find it to be pretty fun. Some of the faster cars (Wizzard for instance) may experience a missed lap every now and again. Not to discredit the software at all I realize it is a physical adjustment problem not the program code. My kids and I have spent hours tying to get the fastest lap and having a timer truly changes everything. Where before it was car against car to determine a winner now its push each car to bring out its best performance and our best driving. We may end up playing with a reed switch this weekend…

I really appreciate everyone’s feedback and love the forum. Again Im a newbie in sponge mode right now and trying to soak up all the info that’s out there.

Burning HO Rubber in Pinckney MI

Thor

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I am in the middle of lap timing issues myself, I have priced a few different options. The Trakmate in my opinion seems like the choice for me, using the I/R sensors. If you decide to use I/R or regular LED, you will most likely need a light bridge, which will cost you additional $$. And you need to match the output of the light source with the sensors. DO NOT GO THE RADIO SHACK BUILD IT YOURSELF METHOD. I have had nothing but issues with it.

I use laptimer 200 on both my portable tracks with a lamp overhead and have had no problems.

and i like it. there are settings you can play with to address missed or ghost laps. once i got reliable sensors it worked well. and it adds tremendous fun to racing solo. makes tuning much more quantifiable.

i had trouble with the IR sensors sold by Greg Braun. part of the problem was i didnt have the right light source. i found these sensors on ebay, and they work very well with the incandesent lighting , so i didnt need to add a light bar to the track. i have an overhang on a section of track from my worktable, and two 60 watt incandescant lights tucked under the overhang work very well with these sensors. the seller doesnt have any listed on ebay right now, but if you email him i am sure he would be happy to list more.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=2619&item=6045491726 (http://www.qksrv.net/click-1606754-5463217?loc=http%3A//cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll%3FViewItem%26item%3D6045491726)

Ok looking for sources
TrakeMate sytem
4 lane LED timming wiring harness'

I have all those - plus you may want to consider www.slottrak.com

Feel free to contact me!

Thanks

FSMRA

I have a crappy old dell latitude laptop, with windows m.e. the most i use it for is like a oversized mp3 player and for word pros. would this be a good thing to dedicate as a track pc for trackmate or laptimer? what are the requirements for those programs? I have almost gave this thing away like 20 times cuz i cant find a good use for it.

hay welcome to slot car racing
i had trak mate for a few years.the only trouble i have had it when i up date my soft ware. it stared to skip laps and if your dead strip is to small it won't count the lap.
now i have two lap counter running on my four lane track.one info red lap counter and trakmate on a dead strip.
if you are only using a 2 lane lay out try using a old micro wave timer to set your time and a over the track afx lap counter.

I have Lap Timer 2000 working flawlessly on my 1/43rd track on an old Windows 95 computer. Now I am trying to get it working on my IBM ThinkPad A20 Windows 2000 Pro and can't get the printer port interface to work. I made a cable and tried jumping 10, 11, 12, and 13 to 25 and get nothing. Even direct jumping at the port gives no results. The keyboard interface (pushing 1,2,3,4 on the keyboard) works.

Any ideas?

I have Lap Timer 2000 working flawlessly on my 1/43rd track on an old Windows 95 computer. Now I am trying to get it working on my IBM ThinkPad A20 Windows 2000 Pro and can't get the printer port interface to work. I made a cable and tried jumping 10, 11, 12, and 13 to 25 and get nothing. Even direct jumping at the port gives no results. The keyboard interface (pushing 1,2,3,4 on the keyboard) works.

Any ideas?

Going from memory, there is a list box in LapTimer related to the parallel port. As I recall there were 4 options in the box, one of which was custom.

On your computer, check the properties of your parallel port (right click My computer/properties/hardware tab/ device manager/right click printer-port LPT1/properties/resources tab. On this tab, there is a number related to the port (mine here at work says 0378-037F). In Laptimer, select the number in the drop down that resembles this.

I remember I had to do this when I hooked up laptimer to my IBM Thinkpad.

Does anyone know how to tell what kind of 25 pin port I have on my laptop? I Saw Greg's site lists a DB25 as well as a parallel 25 pin port. The wiring is different for each and since my lap timer isnt work at all Im thinking I have the otherkind of 25 pin port. I wired mine for the parellel style port but since my laptop is newer Im thinking it might be a 25-pin serial I/O port instead, in which case the wiring needs to change. *shrug* Im lost! lol

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.I had this problem a ways back.......


I think what I ended up doing was buying a cheepola game pad and wired it for the game pad schematic he had on the site.

I bought an adapter at Radio Crack,converted the game pad wire to USB.

And my problems were done.





Mike

I have a Slot Master timing system. It has worked without a hitch from day one. It uses light sensors and doesn't miss laps. There are a lot of great add-on features that I didn't purchase such as crash and burn, pit stops, fuel consumption based on throttle, etc. It will do race rotation and marshall rotation. I wished it tracked fastest lap and announced it.
Jim

Thanks for your help all.

I emailed Gregory Braun and he got back to me rather quickly (within an hour). He suggested changing the the printer port from LPT1 to LPT3.

Gregory Braun's suggestion of changing the printer port to LPT3 worked like a charm. Now I know my software/computer are working good together, and I know that my cable is correct. I'm in business now.

Greg is top notch,
I use laptimer 2000 with the printer port. I had a problem with the infra red led's so I went to jumbo super bright red led's, this works great, have had no problems.

Colin

I have tried Laptimer 2000 and just cant seem to get the parallel or any intewrface for that matter to work. Thinking about the Trakemate solution. Anyone care to share there experiance with either of these two pieces of software?

I am new (again) to slotcars and wish to build a killer 2 lane HO setup. The timer seems to be the only piece missing missing with the exception of my compolsivelly growing slot car collection...Damn Ebay.

Thanks in advance......

Thor
I also had problems getting Laptimer 2000 to work on more modern pc/laptop. It works fine with an old pc.

Also, I believe Trackmate is no longer available. If you go to the website the owner pretty much says he is retired and so is the product.

Anyone, am I reading that correctly ???

I've been using SRM (http://www.cenobyte.nl/slotracemanager/hoofdframe.html) and S.P.T.S. (http://www.geocities.com/bbyarker1/software.htm)

SRM is very easy to set up with photo transistors and S.P.T.S. has a cool fuel consumption feature.
Both web sites explain very well how to hook the sensors to the computer.

IR sensors are the most reliable method to trip the timer and light bridges are simple and cheap to construct.

My whole timing system here (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v14/hot_shoe/lite_bridge.jpg) cost less than $25 bucks. That's including the computer, wire, light bridge cover, photo transistors and LEDs, power supply.

TrakMate is okay,it's Tracker 2000 that's defunct.
I doubt if Dan at Trakmate will be closing up shop anytime soon

http://www.infoserve.net/oss/slotcar/SCL/sclscreenshots.htm

http://www.infoserve.net/oss/slotcar/index.asp

yep, you are correct, Tracker 2000 is defunct. Thanks for the correction.

Guys I am having major issues with Lap timer 2000, Let me start out by saying that I had it working with my laptop, We have done some finalizing of the layout & now decided to add a dedicated PC to the layout, Now the problem, I can not get LT to recognize the game port, I also tried the USB game port adapter he lists on his site as this is how I was running on the laptop. Nothing has changed on the wiring of the the track. But now I can not get either computer to recognize the port & function. I have tried to just use the straight game port as well as the USB connector. I am running XP-pro on both machines, I have already been through the IR aiming exercise & had the software working great on the laptop, now switching to the desktop I get nothing, The software tells me nothing is hooked up or run the emulator, I do the setup for the emulator & then the PC says it is not connected when I pick it as the choice of connection. At times it will not save the emulator setups & after you exit the window & open it back up you can see it reverted back from the 2 axis 4 button setup I had saved. I changed sound cards in the PC for a new game port & still the same problem. Someone please give me some tip or ideas to try, I am about to go crazy trying to figure this out. I contacted Greg about a week ago but have not heard anything from him. Any help will be appreciated, it has been very frustrating as I really thought this would be a simple plug & play as it had worked great on the laptop & nothing has changed in the setup.

Thanks

Boosted

Guys I am having major issues with Lap timer 2000, Let me start out by saying that I had it working with my laptop, We have done some finalizing of the layout & now decided to add a dedicated PC to the layout, Now the problem, I can not get LT to recognize the game port, I also tried the USB game port adapter he lists on his site as this is how I was running on the laptop. Nothing has changed on the wiring of the the track. But now I can not get either computer to recognize the port & function. I have tried to just use the straight game port as well as the USB connector. I am running XP-pro on both machines, I have already been through the IR aiming exercise & had the software working great on the laptop, now switching to the desktop I get nothing, The software tells me nothing is hooked up or run the emulator, I do the setup for the emulator & then the PC says it is not connected when I pick it as the choice of connection. At times it will not save the emulator setups & after you exit the window & open it back up you can see it reverted back from the 2 axis 4 button setup I had saved. I changed sound cards in the PC for a new game port & still the same problem. Someone please give me some tip or ideas to try, I am about to go crazy trying to figure this out. I contacted Greg about a week ago but have not heard anything from him. Any help will be appreciated, it has been very frustrating as I really thought this would be a simple plug & play as it had worked great on the laptop & nothing has changed in the setup.

Thanks

Boosted
If you are using the LPT port, check the port settings in the BIOS. I had many issues with this setup myself and learned it was the hardware in my case. I now use Banner Eng. diffuse type photroelectric switches and it works flawlessly. Also, when I was trying to use the gameport and it wasn't working, I was told by someone that it may be an issue with XP, as these systems were not designed really for gaming but for office use and even though they are capable of using a joystick, they are not any good for it. Keep us posted.

Also, we had a discussion similar in this thread.
http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/showthread.php?t=208774

Thanks I will check it out, I was trying to use the game port & the usb adapter. I have an old lpt d-sub 25 pin cable that I can hack up to use the lpt port if someone could tell me what / where the pins on the LPT go in relation to the R11 (similar to the phone plug) connectector. Sorry guys I am not an electrician & do not know all the connectors. Is there anything specific that I am looking for in the bios as far as the LPT port, I have a relay that I want to hook up to control track power so I was working my way to the LPT port anyway but would like to get it up & running before I add another wrinkle to the system. I can usually solve 1 problem at a time.

Thanks for your help

Boosted

I can't help on relating the wiring for LPT to the phone plug you have, but here is an idea, and how I did mine.

I used a LPT extension cable instead of a normal LPT printer cable, which gave me male d-sub connections at both ends.

Picked up a female connector that had solder cups on one side.

http://inlinethumb58.webshots.com/1913/2317417570099980462S500x500Q85.jpg (http://good-times.webshots.com/photo/2317417570099980462yGPIGU)

If you don't want to solder I think you can find other types of these.

Using Greg B's Trackmate wiring info, attach leads to the cups for pins 10, 11, 12, 13 (lanes) 25 (grd), and 2 (for your future track power relay). In the above pic, I had not yet wired the #2 pin for the relay - that is why there are only 5 wires.

If that phone plug is what is coming from your sensors, snip it off, and I'm guessing there will be 5 wires in there. (The #2 wire doesn't go to the track). Use a continuity checker to find the common ground that goes to each sensor, and connect this to #25. Connect the remaining 4 wires to your d-sub leads. I don't think it matters which goes to which lane, as you can adjust lane colors in the software.

Just one way to do it - hope this helps.

Guys I am having major issues with Lap timer 2000, Let me start out by saying that I had it working with my laptop, We have done some finalizing of the layout & now decided to add a dedicated PC to the layout, Now the problem, I can not get LT to recognize the game port, I also tried the USB game port adapter he lists on his site as this is how I was running on the laptop. Nothing has changed on the wiring of the the track. But now I can not get either computer to recognize the port & function. I have tried to just use the straight game port as well as the USB connector. I am running XP-pro on both machines, I have already been through the IR aiming exercise & had the software working great on the laptop, now switching to the desktop I get nothing, The software tells me nothing is hooked up or run the emulator, I do the setup for the emulator & then the PC says it is not connected when I pick it as the choice of connection. At times it will not save the emulator setups & after you exit the window & open it back up you can see it reverted back from the 2 axis 4 button setup I had saved. I changed sound cards in the PC for a new game port & still the same problem. Someone please give me some tip or ideas to try, I am about to go crazy trying to figure this out. I contacted Greg about a week ago but have not heard anything from him. Any help will be appreciated, it has been very frustrating as I really thought this would be a simple plug & play as it had worked great on the laptop & nothing has changed in the setup.

Thanks

Boosted

I feel you pain.

Ive been through pretty much everything you mention.Reed switches,dead strips,the photo sensors,etc.

Can never get anything to work right to the point where I said screw it a month or so ago and my track has become a huge folding table for laundry.

But,I will soon give it yet another try.

Mike

Thanks, I will check the pins config & get back with you. It is so frustrating as I had it all working on the laptop & its really a neat setup, We mounted a 19" flat Lcd to the wall for the display & now just cant get it to time.

Thanks, again I appreciate the help.

Boosted

I feel you pain.

Ive been through pretty much everything you mention.Reed switches,dead strips,the photo sensors,etc.

Can never get anything to work right to the point where I said screw it a month or so ago and my track has become a huge folding table for laundry.

But,I will soon give it yet another try.

Mike

Photoelectric diffuse type NPN output is the way to go. Havn't missed a single lap since installed. Lovin' it.

Photoelectric diffuse type NPN output is the way to go.

Aces,

Do you have a part number and/or a web link to where someone can buy these?

Buy the trackmate! A+++

Aces,

Do you have a part number and/or a web link to where someone can buy these?

The one I used were the expensive ones, the T8 series from banner engineering ($60 per, luckily I had 3 in my shop and only had to buy 1 more). There is another brand of the same type, just in a larger package on m2sensors.com. I have tested P/N M2 EFA-2DNC - they work great and are adjustable up to 100mm. They are easy to configure and very reliable.

Buy the trackmate! A+++

I am buying their LPT to serial interface board to adapt my hardware with their software. I really like their layout.

I bought a used track mate system from a fellow club member...I'll post how it goes on set up....I have everything but the light bridge....and one of the IR pickups is smashed...

Software is 4.0...I have a PC with 98 still on it I have to dig out...

And having a real power supply rocks.....got the 10 amp track mate...

We race SS at 18v...but it's nice to get my SG+'s out on 22v for some kicks...

Slot cars arent addictive....nah....I could quit anytime I wanted to...:rolleyes:

I have heard and read about so many issues with PC based timing that I went with the Tomy control station hooked to a light bridge so as to do away with those troublesome white bases.

AFX Racemasters are bringing out a new version with extra features and more compact size before the end of the year. It won't be as feature heavy or as a cool as a flawlessly working PC system but very plug and play.

This is my first true "layout" that I have built, I still have all the old T-jet, AFX, AFX-mag, Tyco, & G-plus from my child-hood days. This track I am building with my 10 year old son. The Laptimer was something I found searching around on-line & thought it would be cool for the track. I could not believe how much we enjoyed lapping as fast as we could. We have a 4 lane 70 ish foot / lane layout. Jr is lapping this thing consistently in the low 6 sec range with some of the new super g cars. We have really enjoyed the lap timer & it has worked flawlessly until the recent computer change. I think you guys gave me all the info I need to switch to the LPT port & were going to try that today. I will let you guys know how it comes out.

Thanks again for all the input & help.

Boosted

Changed to the LPT port & it fired right up, no problems at all.

Big thanks to all of you for your help.

Boosted

Hello,
I am also running Lap Timer 2000 from Greg on an older Todhiba Lap top for my 4-lane AFX HO track. I am using the printer port I/O. The only issue I had was I first tried using reed switches. I would constintly have missed and double counted laps and it was frustrating. I gave in and went to Radio Shack and bought the matched pairs of phototransistors (Transmitter and Reciever) wiered them in and have not had one issue since. I will admit it does not get used a whole lot but it does get used.

Jim

Changed to the LPT port & it fired right up, no problems at all.

Big thanks to all of you for your help.

Boosted


Congrats. I know it is so much more fun when it all comes together and operates as intended.:woohoo:

I use Laptimer2000 on my routed track with reeds; I must admit that there were a few setup issues (for some reason my printer post is mapped to LPT3, and the debounce needed to be set to 1000ms) but from there it *mostly* worked. Turbos, SG+ and comparable models started missing laps but (without any known intervention from me) they seemed to settle down. TJets were a similar situation until this weekend when I took it to a racemeet and one of the guys gave it a rubdown with a train rail cleaning erm, sponge type thing and they now seem to be counting fine. Not sure what the issue was there. Wizzards are still missing occasionally, but I believe that may be due to the fact that I routed my reeds *up* to the track, whereas I probably should have routed *down* into the wood. There were a bunch of suggestions the guys came up with and you can read them at our local forum http://neophytte.mine.nu/forum/ and you can read about my routed track at http://routedtrack.hobby-site.com/ Hope you can find some info there to help!!

Cheers

Richard

I use Trakmate for Windows and LED's. Real happy with the performance. The only thing I think it lacks is data management. I really like the way Ultimate Racer 3.0 collects info on the cars, racers, track, etc. and reports back out on it. Trakmate doesn't do any of that so I'm left with the obnoxious process of saving a lot of little Excel files that I later combine with additional data and do it myself.

I would've gone UR3, but Trakmate has the one best feature of all; audible track times. That makes it worth every penny to me. Even makes racing solo fun.

I agree about UR 3 and the database of info it collects. I need to load that program up again and play around with it. Greg's software is just so user friendly - at least that was my impression when I compared them a while ago.

Audible lap times? Do you mean more then the different sound when a new best lap is run? If so, I need to check that out. I was pleased once I hooked up speakers to my PC so that I could here the different sound for a new best.

Totally agree about TrackMate. Great product and the speech feature is great. Getting speech out of a Windows program is pretty easy because Microsoft provides an API for doing it. Just check out the Narrator feature under Accessibility options. I suggested this to Greg years ago because I know he is a professional Windows developer.

I've contemplated doing a race management system myself, but so far I'm having more fun just playing with other people's work and doing my own sounds too much like real work. The biggest missing feature in TrackMate is what I'd call a comprehensive data historian tied to a data management system like Peacefield mentioned. I'm more interested for now in the realtime data and being able to completely reconstruct every lap of every race for every driver and every car. The additional metadata like driver and car info adds another dimension, but only when it's correlated with the real time data and easy to capture. I don't want to have to type in all that stuff.

The nirvana scenario would be to have every car bar-coded, and every controller equipped with an ID that could be read by the track management system, or maybe just put a fingerprint reader on each drivers station and require the driver to log-in to every lane by touching the reader. Being able to collect all of the realtime data automatically is what I really want. A good first step would to capture all of the live race data that's already available and be able to play it back, both for post race analysis for performance tuning (car and driver) as well as being able to reconcile any scoring issues that may have occurred during the race. The super nirvana system would have the ability to determine when a car leaves the track, i.e., crashes during the race, so off track time can be captured as well. A back-emf detection system could be used to do that. Having presence sensors every foot or so would be nice too.

[QUOTE=Scafremon;2310775]Audible lap times? Do you mean more then the different sound when a new best lap is run? QUOTE]

Better. In one of those robotic voices, it calls out the actual lap time to 1/1000 of a second. It's fantastic. You need to turn off all other sounds because they stamp over each other. I don't know how it handles four racers at a time, but for my two lane, it clearly calls out the lap times for the first car followed by the second. It requires only the most recent version of Trakmate for Windows and the installation of a few drivers. Definitely worth exploring.