Does anyone have any experience using the Orion pro lap counting system? Where I race, and practice, the computer is set up only on race nights, and they do not have a printer to print out lap times. Therefore, other than a total race time (44 laps in 4:02.5) there is no way of knowing how fast your running, and if the changes you made are making a difference.

I was thinking about getting one of these to help with my tuning. Please tell me your experiences with this unit.

Also, its my understanding that it can be used as a stand alone unit, is that correct?

I have not personally used one before but I know quit of few people that have & they like them very much. I believe they give you total laps ran, best lap time, & average lap times if not more than that. I'm not sure what your talking about when you say "stand alone" unit???

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Brent Pearcy
Bulit Motorsports (http://www.bulitmotorsports.com/), TQCells (http://www3.sympatico.ca/tqcells/)

By "stand alone" I mean it doesn't need to be hooked up to a power supply or computer or anything.

The unit works with a batterie 9v. and you can actually see all the information on screen display. It doesn't need a computer or a power supply.

Q-ball

Basically you have a transponder (see pic below) with a wire that has a little eye on it.
You will need to mount the eye near the passenger side window of the body.
The transponder plugs into your reciever.


The lap counter unit box runs off of a 9 volt battery as mentioned above.
You set the box near trackside so the eye in the car can beam itself to the counter.

The box records your total run, tap times included which you scroll back through.

Sounds great. Thanks for the info guys. I wanted some first hand accounts before I made the purchase.

Since we are on the topic
How are you guys mounting the eye in the car?

I have borrowed people's to use but it always seems like a pain to get that eye up by the window.

Erock, I took a scrap piece of lexan and bent it into a "L" shape. On the long end of the L I drill a hole just big enough for the eye, and I used double sided tape to tape the short end of the L to the chassis. Just make sure the long side of the L is long enough to go up into the passenger side window (any shorter and if you get hit the piece of lexan may come out the side of the body and destroy your eye.)

Since we are on the topic
How are you guys mounting the eye in the car?

I have borrowed people's to use but it always seems like a pain to get that eye up by the window.

I just took a piece of velcro and cut it about 1/4"X1-1/4".
Stick one piece to the inside of the windshield post,
that way it doesn't show too much from the outside.
Then you just route your 'eye' to the side window, or corner of
the windshield and put the other piece of velcro over the wire
to hold it in place.
Never had it come off, works great.

Jeff
I have seen just do the lexan trick.
I tried that once but I dont think the lexan was tall enough and the eye was in the car too far.

I like Dan's idea with the velcro

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I as well have one and and it does a great job.The one thing you can do with the unit is calibrate it to your track's counting system.so then it is about perfect.So when no one is there you have the correct lap times. I also use lexan. but I believe the velcro is a better idea.

I agree with all that have posted that they work great if you can get good practice runs in. The biggest problem I had when using mine was getting clean practice runs. Almost every time I could get out to practice there would be 5 or more trucks out on the track too which made it very difficult to be consistant. The track I run at locally is only set up once a month so everybody tries to get on the track at once. I just sold mine cause I just didn't have that many oportunities to use it on a consistant basis. Other than that though it worked great.

RC

I love my LCS! So nice to be able to get lap times, etc. for a timed 4 minute run on the oval! I can check out gearing and chassis changes in practice and really evaluate it accurately instead of how it "feels"... Best money I ever spent!

I agree with tfrahm!

I have one and love it also.Dans why works great he show me.

Only draw back is the limit on number of laps and the fact that you can not capture laps below 3 seconds. One track I visit is a real short tri-oval, where top guns will regularly run 2.9 laps. And a five minute heat (therefore practice) is 5 min and will allow for 90+ laps. The unit stops at 60.

I do have an Orion Personal Lap Counter and it works good. What i do is drill a hole the size of the eye a bit smaller so as to hold it in place. I put it on the middle of the side window. I then tape the back to secure it. Placement of the reciever is very crucial specially if you have banked track. Also, if you use it when the sun is shinning high above, it could affect the receiver. It works on infrared principle. So any bright light that can bounce it it's path will like affect it. Thats why I also use Eagletree Car Data recorder that you can buy here at Habbytalk Shopper. Orion counts lap, car data recorder gives you on-track actual telemetry such as RPM, amp draw, torque, motor and battery temp, as they were happening on the track. You can see graph in Excel too. Recently, they came out were you can attach wireless video telemetry on-the-fly, like the ones you see in SpeedTV races.

Aren't they suppose to come out with something that will let the Eagletree count laps too? Somewhere I saw mention of this.

Man!Talk about a real productive day of practice,use the Eagle data recorder in conjuction with the LCS! man that should get you dialed in real quick.

If anyone is interested, I have an LCS that I dont use anymore if anybody you like to get one.



Chris

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Man!Talk about a real productive day of practice,use the Eagle data recorder in conjuction with the LCS! man that should get you dialed in real quick.It's easier said than done. The only time to get a good practice run without or very little track traffic is during the day between lunch & 3pm. Summertime, those were the time were track temp is at it's peak. You can dial-in how ever you want to and get close to race laptimes but come race time at about 4-5pm...track temp drops, and it's a whole new ball game. My local track >>>BMS with it's high-bank corners & fast straights is a demon to tame. It requires a lot of preparation. But very rewarding once you get it right. Eagletree surely helps in knowing which pack will perform at a certain gear ratio / motor combo , but of course human factor plays alot. I surely need more practice run for sure...LMAO But hey, having the right tools makes it a lot more fun racing. I don't care much about winning a 5 bux trophy or plaque, whats more important is I can keep up with the fast guys doing it on my own and finishing the race in 1 piece. LOL Having fun along the way sure beats taking PROZAC !!!!!

GO FAST....TURN LEFT

:wave:

Jeepny,

I know exactly what you mean,my track is exactly the same way.I've raced at BMS and it is a beast but real fun to race on.