External Controls help and advice please

All discussions here

External Controls help and advice please

Unread postby mowerman53 » Tue May 04, 2010 4:25 pm

I have downloaded and am checking out the trial version of your software and so far all is real good, however as a complete simpleton when it comes to this techie stuff (think it's an age thing as am now over 40!!! :oops: ) I am attempting to push my boundaries to see if I can use Xnotestopwatch to manage the following task.

As a volunteer I do manual timing for an off road motorcycle club that in part of it's overall event has a special test section timed manually with stopwatches, we would like to improve our accuracy by automating the controls and previous volunteers have gone some way to collecting equipment to help such as photelectric beams and laptops and cables and things!

So far I have managed to get xnotestopwatch to start and stop using RTS/CTS controls via a 9 pin com port and also to achieve the operation with a single photoelectric beam as our sensing device (Works really easy like this and to be honest i'm quite pleased with my efforts to date!)

What we/I would like to achieve is the following:-
Use photoelectric beam #1 to start the clock
Use photoelectric beam #2 to stop the clock
Record the results of the above in a spreadsheet with a rider number applied in another column
AND
this i think, is the tricky bit!
time multiple riders in the test at the same time (riders all starting at say 20 second intervals and say 8 riders in the test/timed section at once)

We do this at present by using stopwatches at the start and finish that are synchronised and we hit the split/lap button write down the rider number and the time then do the same at the finish and deduct start time from from finish time to measure the elapsed time for each competitor......simple and effective. Is this possible to do with xnote? We of course can then just keep repeating the hitting of the split / lap and also add more synchronised stopwatches as we have people available to do timing. Even with one person at start and finish you can time two or 3 riders in the test at once.

I think what i'm asking is possible from the things i have read in this forum but i'm not sure my little brain can decipher the answers properly.

Some assumptions i'm going to make
A) I will need at least two spare RS232 Com ports to operate the start and stop functions?
B) I will need to use xnote in multiple windows to time multiple riders (upto 8 windows)
C) Both beams will need to be operated as snap timing and the records written to excel then calculated by excel.
D) I will need to buy the full version software to get this up and running.
E) I will need to be clear about how the hardware connection effects the software operation.
F) The sensitivity of the photoelectric beams could cause problems as flying debris from the moving motorcycle will likely trigger the switching of the photoelectric beam

Any help and advice you can give would be much appreciated.

Kind regards
mowerman53
 
Posts: 10
Joined: Mon May 03, 2010 8:09 am
Location: UK

Re: External Controls help and advice please

Unread postby Stopwatch » Wed May 05, 2010 10:14 am

I do not understand how you are willing to connect a single beam to 8 individual stopwatches.


mowerman53 wrote:We do this at present by using stopwatches at the start and finish that are synchronised and we hit the split/lap button write down the rider number and the time then do the same at the finish and deduct start time from from finish time to measure the elapsed time for each competitor......simple and effective. Is this possible to do with xnote?

Yes, of course. It's seems to be even the simplest possible solution.
Stopwatch
Site Admin
 
Posts: 439
Joined: Thu Feb 19, 2009 6:25 pm

Re: External Controls help and advice please

Unread postby Guest » Wed May 05, 2010 11:15 am

Well things are moving along nicely at present with the hardware (blob of solder here and there and away we go.....and my thinking has changed a little.

I will now have to run two computers with the two photcells, one to take a snap of the start time and one to take a snap of the stop time and then merge the results in excel followed by a calculation for elapsed time.

To have more than one rider in the timed test at a time i will have to open more than one instance of the stopwatch and have all instances that are opened started from the same hot key....is this possible?
A repeat on the finish line computer will also need to happen with a way of synchronising the starting of all instances of the stopwatch on both machines at the same time...is that possible?
mmmmmmm!

Not sure that i need to do that do I? just record the rider number against each snap time triggered........One stopwatch on each computer

Both photocells can then run continuously throughout the event with an operator at each end of the special test entering the rider number against each snap taken by the photocells.....seems possible?

Can the results go to an excel sheet from multiple open instances of the stopwatch



That way i will have the errors of getting a person to reliably "react" on a standard stopwatch eradicated and need only two persons to record all the times. As a backup i will use a video camera at the finish line to distinguish between two close times of riders crossing the line together!

Writing on here is helping me to muddle through it all in my little brain.

Thanks for the reply post
Guest
 

Re: External Controls help and advice please

Unread postby mowerman53 » Wed May 05, 2010 12:09 pm

Moving along nicely now as i'm starting to get my head around things

I have now managed to get two stopwatches running on the same computer and started both simultaneously with the custom hot-key options (re-read other forum threads thanks people!)

I have also managed to free up the serial port by using an RS232 to USB adapter which means I can connect both photocells to the one laptop and have both taking and recording the snap time at the beginning and end of the test section (only slight problem is that I shall have to be able to clearly see the riders at both the start and finish areas to be able to record them) so i'm now off to read some more on here as to how I can get excel integration to work for me as at present each snap is recorded to the same cell overwriting the previous, I need a list of times which I can see can be done with the "cursor" option but I want the list to be populated automatically so I can just apply the rider number.
mowerman53
 
Posts: 10
Joined: Mon May 03, 2010 8:09 am
Location: UK

Re: External Controls help and advice please

Unread postby Stopwatch » Wed May 05, 2010 6:53 pm

Guest wrote:A repeat on the finish line computer will also need to happen with a way of synchronising the starting of all instances of the stopwatch on both machines at the same time...is that possible?

How? You might use Clock functionality but it seems it's not providing milliseconds precision.

mowerman53 wrote:at present each snap is recorded to the same cell overwriting the previous,

Assign a different column.
Stopwatch
Site Admin
 
Posts: 439
Joined: Thu Feb 19, 2009 6:25 pm

Re: External Controls help and advice please

Unread postby mowerman53 » Wed May 05, 2010 10:45 pm

Well I now seem to have my hardware sorted to have two stopwatches starting at the same time with the same hotkey and two photcells taking snap times

In excel i now have assigned a range in a column so that each snap is recorded one after the other for the start snap in one column and the same in a separate column for the finish snap.

only problem now is to work out how to customise the stopwatches and save them so that they don't keep reverting to the default settings. From what i have read so far the is dependant upon how the window for each stopwatch is closed.......anyone got any tips on this?
mowerman53
 
Posts: 10
Joined: Mon May 03, 2010 8:09 am
Location: UK

Re: External Controls help and advice please

Unread postby Stopwatch » Thu May 06, 2010 9:06 am

mowerman53 wrote:only problem now is to work out how to customise the stopwatches and save them so that they don't keep reverting to the default settings. From what i have read so far the is dependant upon how the window for each stopwatch is closed.......anyone got any tips on this?

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=10
Stopwatch
Site Admin
 
Posts: 439
Joined: Thu Feb 19, 2009 6:25 pm

Re: External Controls help and advice please

Unread postby mowerman53 » Fri May 07, 2010 12:53 pm

Thanks once again your link to the other forum page was spot on, I now have learnt to exit properly to retain my customised settings on the stopwatch.

Once i have performed a test of both the stopwatches and all the other equipment running at the same time i will be committing to licencing the software as i thinks it is brilliant. :mrgreen:

Next lesson for this "Simpleton" is to try and automate the collection of my results, calcs and use lookup tables in excel macros using VB, wish me luck!

I will also let you know when i have had a chance to test this in the real environment of an event (perhaps 16thMay will be the day!) :D :D :D
mowerman53
 
Posts: 10
Joined: Mon May 03, 2010 8:09 am
Location: UK


Return to Main forum

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 82 guests

cron