364 replies to this topic

[SlotsNZ]

Gotta say, it seems faster to replicate similar racers now, and the whole expert races area seems so much cleaner than 1.1 -ish when I was first talking with you Dave.

- To anyone who wants to transfer track/race data from one computer to another, and they use different Op systems.
-- I discovered something today.
Win 7 stores the RC track, race and driver data files in C:/ProgramData/Race Coordinator; whereas
Win XP they are in C:Application Data/Race Coordinator - - or something like that.... I turned the old Track computer off now.
But the track PC is an 12 year old donkey, so I built up the system on my Win 7 Laptop, then just copied the whole database of stuff ready to go into the Track timing PC.

Exception would be driver avatars, which are in a subdirectory of the data within the application itself.

[Race Coordinator]

SlotsNZ,

You are correct. The different OS's store user data in different places. I HATE how I did this and an see myself moving it again someday, but it's better than it was in which on newer computers there were tons of write access (permission) problems. I'm working on a FAQ page for my website and this issue is #1 on the list:


How can I move RC between computers?
RC can easily be moved from one computer to another. You must copy the "App Data" folder from your source computer
to your destination computer. Simply do the following:

• Make sure the destination computer has the same or newer version of RC installed on it. If you use a newer database in an older version of RC you run the risk of losing data. This means if you move a database to a PC with a newer version installed, you MUST update the older version before moving the database back.
  
• Locate your "App Data" directory where your database and other save data are. The location of these files varies from operating system to operating system. Note that these are hidden directories so you may have to unhide them to navigate to them:
  
  • On Windows7 this is C:\ProgramData\RaceCoordinator
    
  • On Windows Vista this is C:\ProgramData\RaceCoordinator
    
  • On WindowsXP this is C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\RaceCoordinator
• Copy the entire RaceCoordinator directory structure from your source computer to your destination computer. ***Note, that the two computers do not have to have the same operating system, but you must place the directory where it belongs on the destination computer based on it's operating system.

[Race Coordinator]

Okay looking over my schedule and considering how quiet the bug reports have been I've decided to officially release v1.5.0.0

This release is huge. First and foremost, This release invalidates any saved races from v1.4.5.0 or older. This means that when you upgrade you will lose the ability to export any of your old races. Export them before you update. I'm sorry for the inconvenience but the file format change paved the way for a lot of really cool features including much better xls export support. If you get a warning at startup when installing this version read it carefully, check the FAQ on my site, and/or email me questions/concerns. You have been warned.

This release has been in beta for awhile now and I've had a lot of people using it and providing feedback. Special thanks to you guys. With my current schedule I don't think I could have gotten this release out with out your help. Certainly not as stable as this build appears to be...

Now, here's the highlights of this release. But this is really just the highlights. Check out the readme change log for everything:

• Season Support (early stages but a very good start). Feedback welcome
  
• Save/Load races and Auto Save so you can recover from an otherwise tragic event (like a power outage)
  
• Highly customizable xls export support including exporting directly from the race day screen
  
• Interface enhancements for easier use
  
• Several bug fixes
  
• Much much more.

Download and enjoy. As always feedback is welcome.

*** And now a word from our sponsors ***

I try not to do this very often but considering the extent of this new release now is another good time. A lot of people have spent a lot of time working on RC. I'm at the front line of the effort. I/we offer RC for free. The only thing I ask is that you consider how much time I've invested on an application I don't really use any longer and never used about 90% of. After considering the huge effort it is to maintain and support RC consider making a donation to me. No matter how big or small. As always I will re-donate the money to charity and in many cases match your donation.

Please check out my charity page for my motivation here and more information on how you can help. http://www.racecoord...et/charity.html

For those of you have already donated, no matter how big or small, my wife and I thank you from the bottom of our hearts. I can't begin to tell you what it feels like each and every time we get a card in the mail from First Candle stating a donation was made.

Sincerely,
Dave

[Race Coordinator]

The v1.5.0.0 release so far has been very stable. Only positive comments and some minor problems. Thanks to everybody who beta tested that huge release and provided feedback. You guys are the ones that made it so solid.

With that said, there's a new beta v1.5.0.1 available. This one has a few minor fixes to xls exporting. But that's not the reason for the release. This beta release has been done to introduce RC support for DSxx boxes. I've been working with one other person to get the DS support in and it's now far enough to let others check it out.

There are some things you need to know about the DS support however. RC wants to be in complete control of the race. So does the DS box. This causes some problems. Primarily what we've found is that the race controller needs to decide how they want the races to work and configure both the DS box and the RC race itself properly.

My recommendation to start with is to create an RC race in which the heat duration is infinite. This will allow the DS box to control when the heat ends. This is by far the simplest way to "sync" the DS box with RC. To do this do the following in RC:

• Go to the Expert Race Setup
  
• Go to the "Scoring" tab
  
• In the "Finish Method" group, select "Time Limit"
  
• In the "Finish Method" group, set the "Finish Time" to 0
  
• In the "Finish Method" group, set the "Finish Laps" to 0
  
• Go to the "Audio" tab
  
• For each callout in the "Heat Callouts" listbox, select it and hit "Remove"
  
• Hit Update (or change the name of the race and hit Add)

When you run this race the timer will count up, and it will only end when the DS box race settings say so. I'd set the DS box to timed mode and run your heat off the DS box timer. You can add the heat callouts back, but the ones that were there by default were almost certainly wrong so my directions simply have you remove them.

Don't forget to go into the "Expert Track Setup" and change the track interface to "DS" and configure it appropriately.

Now, generally speaking when you run a DS race here's how it goes:
RC disables the Race Director start/pause menu options. These are not controlled by the "Go" and "Puase" buttons on the DS box. The Go and Pause buttons will control RC's pause/unpause state. The Go button will also automatically reset a heat if it is pressed while the RC heat is running. ***It will do this with out asking if you're sure***. Depending on how your RC race is configured and how the DS box is setup you can very easily get the two out of "sync". This is why I recommend letting one or the other be in charge. My example above lets the DS box be in charge. Another approach would be to set the DS Box up for an "infinite" race and let RC control the heat timing. When the RC heat is over in this case you have to manually stop the DS race wiht the go button and get RC and the DS box back in "sync".

Please play around with it and feel free to make comments/suggestions and ask questions. At some point I want to have an extensive readme on how this stuff works and even provide a database for RC that the readme can reference. So hopefully at some point it will be something like "run Race A if you configure the DS box like this...". But that's a bit off and I'll need help with it since I don't the DS equipment.

-Dave

[Race Coordinator]

A long time ago I was chatting with somebody about a time sell feature for RC. After my system crash I lost that contact information. If you're out there and are still interested (or anybody else is for that matter) I'd like to talk about it again. Please send me an email. I'm trying to cross things off my wish list and time sell is bubbling up. I don't know if/when I'll get to it, but if my free time presents itself I'd like to have all my questions answered.

***Note to those interested, time sell would probably be a pay for option within RC. How much it costs would depend on the situation and will be negotiable, but if I'm going to provide features that money can be made off of, my charity is certainly going to see a little something in return. Again, this is negotiable and could easily be waived if the situation warrants it.

[waldo05]

Hi there,

just woundering if there is an easy way of setting up a race where every driver races everyone in each lane?

[slotbaker]

Race Coordinator, on 12 March 2012 - 01:23 AM, said:

A long time ago I was chatting with somebody about a time sell feature for RC. After my system crash I lost that contact information. If you're out there and are still interested (or anybody else is for that matter) I'd like to talk about it again. Please send me an email.

That would be me.
Email sent.

[Race Coordinator]

waldo05, on 08 May 2012 - 07:16 PM, said:

Hi there,

just woundering if there is an easy way of setting up a race where every driver races everyone in each lane?

Sorry for the super slow response. I've just recently started making the forum rounds again. You absolutely can have everybody race everybody else on every lane with RC. I say that because you can literally have any rotation you want with the custom rotation files. As an example, if you have 2 lanes and 4 drivers I assume you want something like:

Each letter is a driver (A, B, C and D) running on lane 1 and lane 2

AB
BA
AC
CA
AD
DA
BC
CB
BD
DB
CD
DC

You'd set this up using custom rotation files which can be created with the custom rotation editor, or if you look at the files it creates and understand them, they can be done by hand which is sometimes easier. The trick is you need to know how many drivers you'll have and create 1 file per number of drivers you might have. So if you get between 4 and 12 drivers a night you'd need 8 files, one for each number of drivers... It's actually not hard once you look into it a bit.

-Dave

Edited by Race Coordinator, 13 June 2012 - 12:54 PM.

[Race Coordinator]

A new beta release is up. This release fixes the previously mentioned Trakmate issues. If you are a Trakmate users, I strongly recommend downloading and testing this release for your particular configuration before using it for any "important" race night. Although I've tested it and had it tested as thoroughly as possible, all Trakmate users will be affected by this change and as such could potentially be broken. If you ever plan on updated to a new release testing against this one is a good idea. Otherwise you may run into the problem and depending on release state you could end up waiting for a fix. I presume you won't be able to tell the difference between this release and the previous ones. but better safe than sorry.

I also added a power over ride feature. The race director can directly control track power from the Race Day screen. The RMS itself doesn't "know" you've done this so if you turn lane power off during a heat, the heat timer will continue as if nothing happened. The RMS will also override your override if/when it sees fit... This feature is meant to all you to run un-timed laps between heats, but can be used any time for any reason.

-Dave

[Race Coordinator]

New beta release up. v1.6.1.13. This one fixes a Trakmate drift issue introduced in 1.6.1.12 and it fixes a long standing "total time" bug that occurs when you abort a heat and restart it.

-Dave

[Race Coordinator]

v1.6.2.0 is officially released and available on my site. This is primarily a bug fix release (nothing too major) and a few minor features. Check out the readme on my site for more details. Thanks to everybody that helped with the 8 lane Trakmate issues, the DS problems, and the rest.

-Dave

[gazza]

Thanks Dave ..... will give it a workout this afternoon

[snurfen]

Just about to give this a crack on a little rally track I've knocked up. this is my taster to see whats what beforee I try and get it onto the club timing system.

we're currently using Slotmater 8 and as much as I've tried, I can't get it running easily enough so that anyone and everyone can run an event. The output is not very customisable for what we need.

Does anyone know if Iwill be able to take the output from slotmaster and feed it to RC? Currently the control unit feeds to a laptop via the USB port so I may well be barking up the wrong tree before I start.

[waldo05]

Hi guys,

Has anyone made start lights to work with this program?

If so how was it hooked up and how was it made?

[snurfen]

very impressed. Got it working fairly quickly - hardest part was finding a webcam in a box in the garage.

I'm not getting 100 reliability with my laps, missing a few here and there, but I've simply plonked a cam next to the track and put a flourescent anglepoise lamp above it. Will need a bit of finesse to get it going properly and still not sure what the webcam.exe is all about.

Half watching the ryder cup and faffing with this, so I'm not expecting a miracle just yet.

Will be interested if anyone comes up with a workable answer for Waldo05's lightbridge question.

[gazza]

Snurfen ......

Most of us that use RC use it through a 25 pin plug to the printer port, Yngwie (John) has set up a web cam through the USB which works ok on the single lane rally

If you do decide to run with RC on the rally track i can send you a modified display that i played with for my track. it only displays one lane information.

The only down side about using RC as a rally program is that the end times are all in accumulated seconds, no big thing just means a couple of extra minutes converting old school.

Waldo05 ......

Never needed a start light setup as the one in RC has been good enough as it lakes up the whole screen (after enlarging it) and booms through the speakers, but i'm sure there is provision in the program that will allow you to add a stand alone start gantry

This is RC on my road track, the bigger screen allows you to add the leader board as well as the next racers on deck to bee seen all at once


The rally track runs through a laptop which gives you all the results and information on it .......



and a separate monitor displays the current driver stats .......



I've gone a little overboard at the moment and i currently have 3 monitors for the drivers info, 1 on the track 1 next to the laptop and 1 in with the road track

[kalbfellp]

Only 3 monitors! Gazza I will raise you two! Because I had plenty of free CRT monitors I got tired of the guys complaining a out not being able to see a screen so was running 5 screens, and they still complained and were never ready for their heat. Maybe I should have gone your way and used big TV,s!
Are you running thru the Trakmate interface with RC?

[gazza]

Nah just straight from the track to the computer, the boy's didn't include me in on there last buying trip, i've only got a 3 lane play track, not a big 4 lane monster

3 extra monitors are enough, though i might put one over the top of the big screen so you can see whats happening on the rally track without having to move 1.5 mtrs

The big screen i picked up from cash converters, they have them in all the time, non digital or hd, no one wants them ..... $50 - $200 depending on size and condition ...... first come first served

[Race Coordinator]

RC Supports LED start lights if this is what you mean. I can only help you in the setup to RC. Right now the LED support is "wonky" because to my knowledge I'm the only one that has ever used it. At a high level right now you can mirror the start light window by using tri-color LEDs (red, green, and yellow). You then hook up each LED to two pins on the parallel port and tell RC what they are...

From an electrical standpoint you'll need a power source for the LEDs and the proper resistor setup. I can't help much beyond that but I'm sure somebody on some forum can help more...

waldo05, on 01 October 2012 - 07:18 AM, said:

Hi guys,

Has anyone made start lights to work with this program?

If so how was it hooked up and how was it made?

[Race Coordinator]

Considering I Don't even know what "slotmaster" is I'd say RC doesn't support it. If you enlighten me I could possibly put it on a todo list although I make no promises.

snurfen, on 01 October 2012 - 03:51 AM, said:

Does anyone know if Iwill be able to take the output from slotmaster and feed it to RC? Currently the control unit feeds to a laptop via the USB port so I may well be barking up the wrong tree before I start.