In an effort to improve the events my friend puts on, we are wanting to find timing equipment similar to those used at say... an autocross? Where would one look for such things?
The issue is we don't need two different sensors to be tripped (one to start the timer, one to stop). We need only one to both start and stop the timer as we run on a kart track.
ax ware is the system our club uses for timing. We've run it with the start light also being the finish light and multiple laps in between. We also use a two light setup for more traditional autocrosses.
Axware is just the name of the timing software most clubs use. You'll still need some sort of sensor setup.
As far as autocross timing setups go the big names are Race America and Tag Heuer. Neither are cheap, a few thousand to get started. Double that if you want wireless sensors.
I've also used a timing box made by a company called JACirucuts as well. It worked well but I'm not sure the company exists anymore. The boxes we used were well over 10yrs old.
Soma007 wrote:I've also used a timing box made by a company called JACirucuts as well. It worked well but I'm not sure the company exists anymore. The boxes we used were well over 10yrs old.
JACircuits is owned/ran by one of my coworkers on the side. As far as I know, he still sells timing equipment. Website
Bah, make your own with some garage door sensors and an old stopwatch. Have the sensor trigger a relay to start he watch and then stop it once it's tripped again.. Grassroots at it's finest! In my head it makes sense 
In reply to klipless:
Cool, I know we tried to buy a new box but they weren't available. I figured the company went out of business but it looks like they're just in between models right now.
If you talk to him I'd kindly suggest he speed up the development a bit. :) I know of two clubs locally that had to go elsewhere (Raceamerica) because no new JACircuts equipment was available.
You may want to check with different scca regions. They might have some older equipment that they'd be willing to sell.
KJ
I've been thinking about this problem for YEARS (like, 15 years).
I'm not a tech guy, but it sems that it should not be TOO hard to use a laptop and put together a package for timing. Is it really that difficult? Would you nead a Data Acquisition board? I don't know...but it seems silly that this type of thing hasn't been done DIY a bunch already.
Hmmm...
Clem
I have a timing setup in a box in my basement. It's wireless with two gates, will either interface with a laptop or trigger a stopwatch. The price was fairly cheap (under $500) and I think it interfaces with the laptop via USB. We used to just use the stopwatch because it was much easier for people to understand - when the run's over, write the time on a label, then stick the label on the big sheet. The laptop version could do multiple cars on course at a time (not that we had enough room for that) and did a bunch of other tricks, at the expense of an interface that was more complex than a reset button 
The company is out of business now as far as I can tell, but their main business was barrel racing. Might be worth looking in that area.
Another vote for axware.
It's the shizznet.
Our region is using axware along with the axwrats timing box.
It also supports a bunch of other hardware timers
ClemSparks wrote:I've been thinking about this problem for YEARS (like, 15 years).
I'm not a tech guy, but it sems that it should not be TOO hard to use a laptop and put together a package for timing. Is it really that difficult? Would you nead a Data Acquisition board? I don't know...but it seems silly that this type of thing hasn't been done DIY a bunch already.
Hmmm...
Clem
We did this exact thing. Used National Instruments sensing board- so IT keeps time, and not the laptop (windows is notorious for having poor timing to the thousandth). Two lights, and input for cones, off course, dnf, red flag, etc.... Spits it all to a basic spreadsheet.
It's cut down time to do results by hours. Love it.
One of our members wrote the NI interface, which we got a non-profit lisence for, and it's pretty cool. Kinda confusing to do the very first time, but once you know it, it's sweet.
BTW, we did it becuase we didn't want to spend $1500 for a new timer, and that was the only way to do an auto input system that we were happy with. There are some out there that probably will fit your needs (well there were...).
Eric
I am actually writing as a pet project an autocross timing software system. I am curious about USB start lights. I have a great foundation for features, run management, yadda yadda yadda, but I just don't have a way to test the accuracy of the system. I'm still working on it.
I wrote my own for our club. It uses Tri-Tronics SmartEye classic photo sensors to trigger serial ports on a PC. It can run with the sensors wired directly to a single timing laptop, or you can distribute computers around the lot and use WiFi to communicate sensors events back to the timing laptop. Range is 300+ feet, more if you use special antennas (like a cantenna, or wave guide). Plus, you can place the WiFi router in the middle of the lot and effectively double the range. We also run a bar-code scanner at start for driver ID and car index, and any computer can drive a large LED display (currently using one from RaceAmerica). I'm working on displaying live results on a fourth computer that any participant can see.
The software is written in Linux/C++ to get around difficulties in timer accuracy in Microsoft Windows (DOS doesn't have this problem) and for direct access to the serial port. Plus, I hate Windows and save on license costs on the computers.
If things go well at the event, we can literally post our results within 30 minutes after the event ends. I'd like to open source the whole project eventually, but for now it's still needs a little development to be ready for public consumption. In particular, I want to improve the computer time synchronization to rely less on NTP and compute my own clock offsets based upon periodic network pinging.
In reply to JoeTR6:
Thats amazing! Im thinking we maaay have to stick with an inaccurate stopwatch for a little bit or homebrew something ourselves... Thanks for all the response guys.
I am having pretty decent results in managed code on a netbook running Windows 7. I am hitting roughly 2.8 million ticks per second, and testing on repeated threads I haven't seen a variance of more than .002ms.
Since we only go down to thousands for scoring, this may be precise enough... At least it's repeatable. Hmm. I need to figure out how to test this setup for accuracy and precision.
In reading over the original posting, it sounds like you want more of a lap tracker. Before getting into autox, I used to run R/C cars with a local hobby shop. The owner had transponders you would clip to your car, and it triggered a pulse when each car drove through a coil of wire. Not sure exactly how it worked or if it would scale up to cart size, though.
JoeTR6 wrote:In reading over the original posting, it sounds like you want more of a lap tracker. Before getting into autox, I used to run R/C cars with a local hobby shop. The owner had transponders you would clip to your car, and it triggered a pulse when each car drove through a coil of wire. Not sure exactly how it worked or if it would scale up to cart size, though.
Hmm... ill look into that. Thank you!
AMEC in New York uses transponders to do their autox. Works well, you need someone at staging to put the box on the next car to run.
From what I remember...transponder setups are very expensive.
