New Pack Track loaded with light bars and full motion start gate

[Richard Burbage]

Slow down the media play to .25.

Well, I've had too way too much fun with this track. I was appointed PWD Man in the Chair this year of our pack. The cub master came over and said, find us a new track. We are upgrading a SuperTimer/Super Track purchased in 2001.

So, I've been reading online about a few other options out there for track starting devices. Most are a pull the gate handle for you but you still have to flip the gate back up and then there is a handle sticking up and springy dingies.

I ran into the New Directions website and I was intrigued with the full motion start gate GRB. Then this device is complimented by the LT4 - Light Tree with very bright, doubled sided 1W un-diffused LEDS on a stick.

So, We purchased the GRB, LT-4, SCI, PB3 and GPS for the pack and I spent a number of months off and on tweaking the setup to look great, be flexible and easy to operate with nothing to remove , untape or unbolt after the race. The idea was to just unplug the cables, roll up and store in the box.

Out of the box these products simply bolt right in and do the job. I decided to take them to a new level and make the setup very flexible with nothing to take apart for storage or remove, replace batteries.

Everything is bolted or tie-wrapped on with just a serial cable to unroll to the race computer. Then roll out the cable assembly, (3 cables tie wrapped together. The serial cable, 3.5mm start/reset cable, and 12V extension) to the timer. Then, attach a power cord to the Grounded Power Strip below.

The timer's 12V supply was extended from the start gate from the power pack attached to the power strip bolted on a grounded plate underneath with an upgraded 2A capacity.

This cable assembly neatly tucks under the track legs purchased with the leveling kit.

The GRB full motion, rotary solenoid operating the start gate is a beast! It needed to be tamed with a discrete counter balancing weight to smooth out the gate release accompanied with an adequate spring return. There is a video of that below in slow-mo on the Samsung S8 without any bounce on gate release.

The LT4 had the 1W undiffused LEDS removed from the board and located along the sides wired into the sand blasted diffused lenses. This makes it easy so there is no need to remove the original LT4 white tube or roll up the cable and manage the 3 AA batteries.

The LT4 PCU 4.5V battery case was removed and wired to a 4.5V power pack. The LT4 circuit board is mounted in a 3/4" drain tube mounted under and painted black.

The SCI computer connection to start the LT4 or GRB via GPRM were mounted under so that the Pin 4 and RxTx LEDS were visible.

Then, the PB3 button was reconfigured in a separate black box to the green illuminated switch at the panel. It was also attached to the 4.5V power pack removing the original 3.2V button cell battery. This will be used to start the race at the track if the IR device or GPRM is not used.

The left switch, in the group of 3 switches to the right power the the LT4 and change the cabling to the LT4 and GRB. The last 2 switches in the group of 3, change mode from LT4 to GRB or straight to the GRB.

The far left switch operates the start device as either from GPRM or by the IR Track Blaster (TV remote in a drain tube). The IR Track Blaster is handed to a scout the begin each heat.

Then the far right red button is the Champ Timer reset switch moved to the back. In this location it avoids shearing off from the side. It is wired with a custom cable to the start switch and then to the timer. It's easier to control from the back with a finger guard to prevent accidental resets.

It's very flexible and of course voided all the warranties.

So, with this setup and if GPRM hardware setting has Solenoid Start Gate Light Tree enabled at 3 secs and with Enable Auto Advance and Enable Hands-Free Timing at 1 min in Racing Controls. The track can continuously run in full auto mode as long as you can feed the track cars in the set time.

Take a look at the pics. Our pack race on 1-27-19 went perfectly.

Anyone else have any luck with using New Directions equipment?

https://photos.app.goo.gl/P9TnSPVxcTdtvtgt7

 

[ironband]

That's quite a set-up! I considered using New Directions, but ultimately built a home-grown solenoid system for our old wooden track for this year because we had no budget. It's become sort of a pet project - A couple years ago we wanted to connect our old Microwizard P2XL finish line to the computer and found that upgrading would be rather expensive, so I integrated an arduino timer into it to talk to the computer. It was so much fun I then added a Raspberry Pi based slow motion instant replay of the finish line. This year I added the solenoid start with a wireless remote. Next year I'm hoping to add another camera angle to the instant replay and upgrade to some faster electronics.

A new track would be nice, though. Perhaps we can find the budget for that in a few years.

 

[Richard Burbage]

That's quite a set-up! I considered using New Directions, but ultimately built a home-grown solenoid system for our old wooden track for this year because we had no budget. It's become sort of a pet project - A couple years ago we wanted to connect our old Microwizard P2XL finish line to the computer and found that upgrading would be rather expensive, so I integrated an arduino timer into it to talk to the computer. It was so much fun I then added a Raspberry Pi based slow motion instant replay of the finish line. This year I added the solenoid start with a wireless remote. Next year I'm hoping to add another camera angle to the instant replay and upgrade to some faster electronics.

A new track would be nice, though. Perhaps we can find the budget for that in a few years.

So, how did the PI setup work? Was it an open source project on the net? Any pics to share?

 

[ironband]

So, how did the PI setup work? Was it an open source project on the net? Any pics to share?

It was my own design, but I've made the code and whatnot available. I need to do some better documentation and whatnot - on my to-do list.

Here's a video showing the guts of it:

And here's a video of it in use:

And actual footage from last year's pinewood derby:

 

[Richard Burbage]

It was my own design, but I've made the code and whatnot available. I need to do some better documentation and whatnot - on my to-do list.

Here's a video showing the guts of it:

And here's a video of it in use:

And actual footage from last year's pinewood derby:

Very cool! I was going to use GPRM software called race replay but I ran out of time to get it setup.

 

[FastFox]

Ironband,

where can we find your code and whatnots?

 

[ironband]

Ironband,

where can we find your code and whatnots?

If you go to the first youtube video posted above, the code is in the video description. There is also some good info in some of the comments, I think.

I'll be doing an upgrade of the system sometime this year, so there will probably be a new video in the summer sometime.