1 (edited by Mitch58 September 1, 2021 5:55 am)

Topic: Race Coordinator, Trackmate, ECT.

As most of you know there have been issues with Race Coordinator on some of our tracks, Mine, Al's, Montes, Howies, ect.

Some of these have been fixed by switching to Trackmate hardware.

My issue wasn't loss of power like the others, Mine would go to a blue screen and having to restart the PC. Sometimes this would happen while idle, most of the time it was when adding racers or setting up a race.
I took the PC down to the local guru in town  He checked it out and told me there was nothing wrong with the unit and it was probably something in the digital download. His suggestion was to remove the program and install it again.
I did this repeatedly to no good affect. 
  Monte and Al set up my timing system while I was recovering from my stroke so my awareness was somewhat limited, but since I had no wifi or internet downstairs at the time we downloaded the program on the PC upstairs and put it on a memory stick to transfer to the race PC.
  After adding Wifi downstairs I had never tried a direct download to the race PC. That was the trick, in my case it has worked flawlessly since. I think part of the program is getting corrupted in the memory stick transfer.

Just an FYI for those of you who are wanting to set up a timing system at home.

Re: Race Coordinator, Trackmate, ECT.

We had the random power off issue at Howie's when we first switched his DOS computer system running SRT to a newer PC running Race Coordinator. Some testing indicated to me the relay we were using for track power was dropping out due to margin voltage at the relay coil connections. This applied voltage from the computer would fluctuate and the relay would drop out. We fixed that issue by installing older Trackmate system hardware. The Trackmate board includes a relay with a separate power supply that is used to power the track relay. Howie's system has worked perfectly since.

Recently Bob Nakamura's track experienced a random power off issue using a newer Trackmate system. Bart Ouchida did some diagnostic work on Bob's track and determined the small wall pack style power supply that comes with the Trackmate hardware was not putting out sufficient voltage to keep the replay powered up. Bob called Trackmate and they decided the power supply was defective.

Here is the data Bart obtained through testing:

30 amp relay - Switch on @ 6.9 volts. Switch off @ 4.2 volts. Coil = 82 ohms. Coil current draw = 70 ma.

80 amp relay - Switch on @ 6.3 volts. Switch off @ 5.0 volts. Coil = 46 ohms. Coil current draw = 180 ma.

In my years and experience with the gas company we commonly worked on pilot light safety systems which worked with low voltage electromagnets. In that industry we commonly referred to the voltage required to energize the coil in the electromagnet as the "pick" voltage. This is the required voltage for the electromagnet to do work (in the gas industry the electromagnet holds a small flap open over a port. In the case of a relay the electromagnet holds the contact points closed or open depending on the relays function). This "pick" operation takes more voltage/current than it takes to "hold" the the operation in place (hold the flap in place in the gas industry, or hold the contacts closed on a relay). The switch off voltage is the minimum voltage it takes to "hold" or maintain the electromagnet's operation. If voltage drops below this minimum the electromagnet will not maintain its hold on the relay contacts and they will open (or in the case of a normally closed relay, the contacts close). I still believe this can be an issue with computer controlled race systems.

I believe one common problem with the track relays dropping out is minimal voltage to the relay coil contacts. Any slight voltage fluctuation can cause the relay to drop out shutting the track power off.

Re: Race Coordinator, Trackmate, ECT.

Of note, the boards we were using for relays were never intended to be used at those current levels, rather 132 at 10v and such.

I talked with Mike (my DRS partner) and he had no interest in upping the levels for larger scale applications.

The Race Coordinator issue in my opinion and backed by testing and research has always been a poor implementation of the serial port driver.  I discussed this at length with the software developer and his reaction was basically to switch to USB.  With his own software package.  So basically he didn't put in the time to make a serial interface work right.

Here's what I found with testing.

I have run my track/system here for just a little over 12 years using Ultimate Racer without issue.  I tried Race Coordinator and in the FIRST RACE HEAT the race was stopped by the typical issue we would see at Al's.  End of story.

Bottom line for me - use something other than Race Coordinator if you are going with a serial port connection.

Trackmate with their own hardware should always be solid.  Same with the DS stuff.  In fact I am looking at using the DS bits I have for my "new" track project.  If only the stop and go boxes that went to the track at the Museum of Speed would resurface.

Pleasant day to you all.

"Big Smooth"

Re: Race Coordinator, Trackmate, ECT.

As Monte knows very well I am NO computer guy. But I still think there may be issues caused by supply voltage to the relays used to control track power. The reason I still believe that is I first encountered this power off issue on a relay controlled track around 1998 or so. On that track I believe the voltage issue was caused by poor electrical connections. But still the relay was dropping out due to low input voltage.

I ran Race Coordinator on my track in Fairview for a few years and never experienced any of the "power off" issues. My track was equipped with the Trackmate hardware wired through a serial port. I now have this same set up on the Checkered Flag four lane 1/24 track, using a different computer, and as of this date I have not experienced any problems running Race Coordinator on this track either. I don't question the serial port diagnosis because I don't understand all that computer stuff anyway, however I still think it is a good idea to diagnose the relay's operation to at least eliminate that as a possible problem.

Monte: " If only the stop and go boxes that went to the track at the Museum of Speed would resurface." Yesterday Jeff Fields said the Museum Of Speed track went to another car museum, I believe he said in Salem. Jeff said they contacted him because they are having "electrical problems" with it.........

5 (edited by Mitch58 September 7, 2021 7:39 pm)

Re: Race Coordinator, Trackmate, ECT.

I don't remember the name but it is a car/motorcycle museum., oh and my Fly Ferrari for LeMans is running 6.3s

You learn a lot of tuning tricks from well built proxy cars, even without taking the body off.

Re: Race Coordinator, Trackmate, ECT.

That right there is a very good reason to volunteer to hold a proxy race!

Re: Race Coordinator, Trackmate, ECT.

I have the info for the Museum in Salem and sent them an email, let's see if they respond.

"Big Smooth"