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SlotsNZ

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Like a lot of folk I have been using Laptimer 2000 because it is quick and simple to set up and learn, nice big display etc

 

What it lacks is the ability to catalogue and store information - especially automatically, automated rotation and heats management, a championship mode etc. . . it's just basic.

 

I have Trakmate at our club, and it works pretty well, but it doesn't have databasing of car classes, and the saving of data is manual, and not very complete.

 

I have been playing with Ultimate Racer, and it has a lot of good features, but the display modes are just HORRIBLE. I have put in pics, played with the display modes - which on my version don't even change when you tell them to, but they're all awful anyway. The text boxes which allow you to select whch car a driver is using are . . er white text on white background - they're there but invisible, and I can't find an option to change that text colour.

 

I have also played with the race management system in Slot Car Manager (SlotMan) - the track designer a lot of folk use.

http://www.slotcarmanager.de/en/all_frames_e.html

 

It is VERY powerful, has a better interface and display modes, and is a bit easier to understand than Ultimate Racer, but I can't understand the pin configuration information . . and I sure as heck can't get a sensor cable into the LPT1 port to work. I think the printer port(s) are used for output of control signals, not the input of track racing data. I guess it uses serial ports or USB for input.

 

There is a hardware race system available in germany called Race Control to go with it, but pretty expensive, and no english instructions are available for it - I talked to the owner/creator already.

Has anyone else tried to set up an input system to use the SlotMan software. I am GUESSING it uses the serial port for input, and the "up to 3 parallel ports" to output signals to external devices like start lights etc.

 

Alternately, is there another software package someone can recommend with strong user features and nice big display.

 

OR, if a mere 25 or so of you would like hardware for SlotMan (cackles at the insane concept of 25 people wanting to spend $200 plus on timing gear) . . . . . . he'll supply us at just over half price, and work with me to translate the instructions . . . .

Edited by SlotsNZ

Recovering Lapsed Slot Addict :ph34r:  *  Custodian of many used screws (mostly loose :rolleyes:)  *  Total kidder  *  Companion of other delusional slot addicts :lol:  

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SlotNZ,

 

I had a look at the SlotMan website. From my reading it looks like the LPT1 cable is for output only. The separate and expensive RaceControl device handles all the timing and input. So I think you might want to search for other software options.

 

Holty

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Hi SlotsNZ,

 

Like you I found LT2000 easy to use and I liked the big display. I wasn't too worried about storing the data automatically since I didn't want to save information for every race, just hit the button when I did want to save.

 

As for lane rotation, I built a macro in MS Excel to take the names of racers and the number of lanes available and then produce a heat list with drivers and lanes. Although that can take some time away from racing to input at the start, it gives visitors some time to practice on the circuit prior to driving in anger.

 

If you are interested, I can try and dig it up and send to you.

 

Cheers,

 

Steve

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SlotsNZ Trakmate will store the lap score for each race even in default mode, but only as a text file. Expore the program "STATS" file and you will find plenty of data! I have used it to recover results recently when we had a power falure during racing. It is not fault free but suits what we do. i like the fact that results can be saved in a spreadsheet saves a lot of typing.

 

Phil

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Holty, - - would you believe it !!! Since I last visited the SlotMan site about 10 days back, he FINALLY put up the new english language version - replacing a 3 year out of date one, and yep, that explains about Race Control hardware, the inputs etc., very clearly.

Bother !! However, it does constitute at leasat a half an online manual, so maybe if I could get a decent price from him I can buy some boxes.

 

Stevo41, yes please, I'd like a copy of that macro if you can find it. Macros to me are like Rubix cube, I SHOULD be able to do them in my sleep, and can't get my head around them at all . . . . .

 

Phil, yeah, I've noticed the facilities in Trakmate. I save our main results at club each week, but because we'd have to extract a lot of data and compile it, . . well, we just don't. - We come, we race, we cover the track and walk out before our chariots turn into pumpkins.

About the only thing we keep live is a whiteboard with the lap record for each class updated. . . . . my name disappeared for what I suspect was the last time 2 weeks back . . . . sigh.

 

What I fancy is a system that automatically saves ALLLLLLLL those laptimes WITH driver, AND car/class, and keeps it as a permanant record you can call up on demand . . . without any thinking or work. I'm just not committed enough to do it the hard way.

 

WOuldn't it be nice if Gregory Braun would do an update for LT2000 - with lane rotation, championship mode etc. I for one would be happy to pay for an "extended facilities" add-on. I bet a lot of others would too.

Recovering Lapsed Slot Addict :ph34r:  *  Custodian of many used screws (mostly loose :rolleyes:)  *  Total kidder  *  Companion of other delusional slot addicts :lol:  

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Contact Steve (aastes) about 'startline' it does everything, and although I haven't used it I'm sure it saves all the race info too!

2 x australian ego champion

 

regards

Shane

 

 

Fulel racing in first track build --> https://youtu.be/nG1EyFkbJSs

 

 

 

My second track build --> 

raceday - https://youtu.be/8WXYQ528iKM

 

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search for SRM 2.30 that keeps records etc

 

ugh !! That's what I've got - unfortunately, it's simply AWFUL!! I can't believe people would actually design a piece of "modern" software with

 

- such terrible visuals

- such terrible user interface

- lacking logic and natural flow in the structure

 

not to mention that some of the features simply don't work - eg changing the display mode - doesn't change the display mode in some cases and the cars text is simply blank/invisible

 

I spent about 3 hours trying to get used to it, and knock it into some sort of shape, but I gave up on it.

Edited by SlotsNZ

Recovering Lapsed Slot Addict :ph34r:  *  Custodian of many used screws (mostly loose :rolleyes:)  *  Total kidder  *  Companion of other delusional slot addicts :lol:  

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search for SRM 2.30 that keeps records etc

 

ugh !! That's what I've got - unfortunately, it's simply AWFUL!! I can't believe people would actually design a piece of "modern" software with

 

- such terrible visuals

- such terrible user interface

- lacking logic and natural flow in the structure

 

not to mention that some of the features simply don't work - eg changing the display mode - doesn't change the display mode in some cases and the cars text is simply blank/invisible

 

I spent about 3 hours trying to get used to it, and knock it into some sort of shape, but I gave up on it.

 

OR, if a mere 25 or so of you would like hardware for SlotMan (cackles at the insane concept of 25 people wanting to spend $200 plus on timing gear) . . . . . . he'll supply us at just over half price, and work with me to translate the instructions . . . .

 

 

 

SRM is Slotrace manager ...... not SlotMan .......... and it is free

 

http://www.cenobyte.nl/slotracemanager/hoofdframe.html

 

I've been using it for over 5 years on all our tracks without a hitch

 

 

Gary

Edited by gazza

Quickly read this post before it is deleted or i turn grey again

Gary

http://www.facebook.com/Rallyproxy2017

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aaggg, oops, sorry Mugford, Gazza and Phil. I was moaning about UR3.0 Ultimate Racer, I got confused with my acronyms.

 

Falcon - I have UR 3.0 But you can't control the amount of data, the layout, the size and colour of type. It would be okay if you could define the exact screen info. you want, ina decent layout with large numbers, and then have it rank the lanes in order for quick glance etc, but it won't even lock on the chosen layout in the setup software, and as I say, the menu option where you choose the car has blank boxes . . . . and no where to define text colour, font etc. to fix it.

I re-downloaded it, in case I had a dud installation, and went through it all again. Same problem. The actual choices of layout are some of the worst graphic design I have seen in years.

 

I do have SRM2.30 - in fact someone from here kindly emailed me 2.40 he got from Mario, but I can't for the life of me find it, I think it was on the two hard drives that karked out simultaneously recently. - Can't prove it, suspect our "dirty" power supply put a spike through them both. Losing both big backup drives at once, plus some stuff which was ONLY on those drives was to put it bluntly - a pain in the . . .

Didn't Mario go MIA or something though - so the program is no longer "Supported" - which as an ancient, rusty once time computer guy op./part time programmer, would worry me.

 

But I easily can't use SRM, or StartLine or anything like that for that matter. My 3 PC are all on XP Pro, and I no longer own a copy of Win98 to put onto a PC

 

I have a couple of ancient laptops as well, running on Win 98 but I found that they are too slow to run timing software with the 1 millisecond timing/sampling option - they simply miss some laps. - experience with two timing systems using LT2000 shows they are fine at 5ms sampling, intermittently reliable at 1ms . . . mutter mutter.

For speed I need 1ms sampling. 20 feet a second (typical mid straight speed) means 305mm x 20 = 6,100mm a second = 6.1mm a millisecond, which means a 15mm guide plade passes the beam of light in 2.45 millisecond . . . for accuracy, nothing slower than 1ms sampling is acceptable.

 

What I would need is to buy something just for that job, and I sure as heck don't need any more laptops kicking round the house.

 

I also want to avoid anything DOS based if possible. Hardware and software support for DOS programs does not have a good future.

Even hardware to support it will become increasingly rare, and I want an upgrade future for hardware and the software and database it is creating.

 

A couple of other EXPENSIVE USA products being sold upwards of $500 are ALSO DOS based. Frankly that scares me . . . .

Edited by SlotsNZ

Recovering Lapsed Slot Addict :ph34r:  *  Custodian of many used screws (mostly loose :rolleyes:)  *  Total kidder  *  Companion of other delusional slot addicts :lol:  

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I have Trakmate at our club, and it works pretty well, but it doesn't have databasing of car classes, and the saving of data is manual, and not very complete.

 

I use the latest version of Trackmate and it auto save the results and even has a file that saves every laptime for every heat

 

There was a few glitches with the earlier versions but it seems fine now

 

I dont worry about car databases so it suits me fine

 

cheers pete

Keep it in the groove

Pete

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I have Trakmate at our club, and it works pretty well, but it doesn't have databasing of car classes, and the saving of data is manual, and not very complete.

 

I use the latest version of Trackmate and it auto save the results and even has a file that saves every laptime for every heat

 

cheers pete

 

Hi Pete, can you tell me the softwarte version number. Our club one is pretty new and it sure didn't come with that capability - so far as I can see.

 

Mark

 

Grego - very duely noted !

 

Gazza - thanks, PM coming.

Recovering Lapsed Slot Addict :ph34r:  *  Custodian of many used screws (mostly loose :rolleyes:)  *  Total kidder  *  Companion of other delusional slot addicts :lol:  

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The latest version of Trakmate is 6.3 but very little change from 5.5 version for club racing. 6.3 allows for time selling for commercial tracks but needs more control gear to sell time. We are using both 6.3 and 5.5 for club racing and at that level no difference. The advantage of Trakmate is that you can enter all the racers and run round robin heats for all entrants as one race with auto rotation between lanes and sit outs all automatic and the results and fastest times can be saved directly to a spreadsheet,I have not been able to find another program that will do that.

 

You should try and work out what you want from the program before you look too far.

 

Phil

Edited by kalbfellp
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aaggg, oops, sorry Mugford, Gazza and Phil. I was moaning about UR3.0 Ultimate Racer, I got confused with my acronyms.

 

Falcon - I have UR 3.0 But you can't control the amount of data, the layout, the size and colour of type. It would be okay if you could define the exact screen info. you want, ina decent layout with large numbers, and then have it rank the lanes in order for quick glance etc, but it won't even lock on the chosen layout in the setup software, and as I say, the menu option where you choose the car has blank boxes . . . . and no where to define text colour, font etc. to fix it.

I re-downloaded it, in case I had a dud installation, and went through it all again. Same problem. The actual choices of layout are some of the worst graphic design I have seen in years.

 

I do have SRM2.30 - in fact someone from here kindly emailed me 2.40 he got from Mario, but I can't for the life of me find it, I think it was on the two hard drives that karked out simultaneously recently. - Can't prove it, suspect our "dirty" power supply put a spike through them both. Losing both big backup drives at once, plus some stuff which was ONLY on those drives was to put it bluntly - a pain in the . . .

Didn't Mario go MIA or something though - so the program is no longer "Supported" - which as an ancient, rusty once time computer guy op./part time programmer, would worry me.

 

But I easily can't use SRM, or StartLine or anything like that for that matter. My 3 PC are all on XP Pro, and I no longer own a copy of Win98 to put onto a PC

 

I have a couple of ancient laptops as well, running on Win 98 but I found that they are too slow to run timing software with the 1 millisecond timing/sampling option - they simply miss some laps. - experience with two timing systems using LT2000 shows they are fine at 5ms sampling, intermittently reliable at 1ms . . . mutter mutter.

For speed I need 1ms sampling. 20 feet a second (typical mid straight speed) means 305mm x 20 = 6,100mm a second = 6.1mm a millisecond, which means a 15mm guide plade passes the beam of light in 2.45 millisecond . . . for accuracy, nothing slower than 1ms sampling is acceptable.

 

What I would need is to buy something just for that job, and I sure as heck don't need any more laptops kicking round the house.

 

I also want to avoid anything DOS based if possible. Hardware and software support for DOS programs does not have a good future.

Even hardware to support it will become increasingly rare, and I want an upgrade future for hardware and the software and database it is creating.

 

A couple of other EXPENSIVE USA products being sold upwards of $500 are ALSO DOS based. Frankly that scares me . . . .

 

Hi SlotsNZ,

 

please give me the detailed list of ur30 lacks. I am gonna fix them one by one. I am just surprised to read such complains as most of the features you're complaining about do already exist in ur30 (!). Maybe the GUI needs to be improved, then I am ready to take the challenge to improve it drastically.

 

Let me know your thoughts, either by mail support@uracerweb.org or by post there

 

/P., ur3 developper

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Hiya Ricky

 

first, thanks for such a gracious response to a moaning, ungrateful recipient of your hard work!

 

Actually I have been fiddling and persevering with UR30 - about 25 hours the past week, - and have gradually worked out many of the features, as it seemed the most comprehensive program not requiring a hardware card.

 

I really don't care for the graphics, and I would like to see the "tournament types" able to be renamed to something that makes sense to me.

I still can't figure out whether it has the capability to run several "rounds" of a tournament, with incremental scoring - say for a weekly series.

 

Yes, I believe the GUI sure needs some work. There are also some funny things happening, some feastures require exiting the menu tree - or the entire program to coax changes - eg race pane that just WOULD NOT change to the chosen option.

It would not allow me to just install an updated version, I had to delete the .24 to install the .26 For anyone not familiar with handling diectory trees manually, this would have meant loss of data from deleting the old directories, or overwriting the databases with the new install.

Then when I installed .26 it would not read my data, fortunately I had a backup copy, so I just overwrote the Access MDB files.

 

- I had a fair investment in the base data - 100 cars already logged into the system with pics, codes etc, sound file changes and so on.

 

I am however ready to eat humble pie on my lack of understanding of how powerful the program is.

And I am not as ungrateful as my criticisms might make me sound!

 

I still don't understand a bunch of things, I'll P.M. you my email address, and you can kick my butt here or by email for the criticisms that are eroneous - perfectly happy for you to do it here, which might help others who perhaps might struggle to get to grips with it.

 

More than happy to be a sounding board or beta tester, though I am not in the same League as you, the Doctor etc.

Edited by SlotsNZ

Recovering Lapsed Slot Addict :ph34r:  *  Custodian of many used screws (mostly loose :rolleyes:)  *  Total kidder  *  Companion of other delusional slot addicts :lol:  

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Hiya Ricky

 

first, thanks for such a gracious response to a moaning, ungrateful recipient of your hard work!

 

Actually I have been fiddling and persevering with UR30 - about 25 hours the past week, - and have gradually worked out many of the features, as it seemed the most comprehensive program not requiring a hardware card.

 

I really don't care for the graphics, and I would like to see the "tournament types" able to be renamed to something that makes sense to me.

I still can't figure out whether it has the capability to run several "rounds" of a tournament, with incremental scoring - say for a weekly series.

 

Yes, I believe the GUI sure needs some work. There are also some funny things happening, some feastures require exiting the menu tree - or the entire program to coax changes - eg race pane that just WOULD NOT change to the chosen option.

It would not allow me to just install an updated version, I had to delete the .24 to install the .26 For anyone not familiar with handling diectory trees manually, this would have meant loss of data from deleting the old directories, or overwriting the databases with the new install.

Then when I installed .26 it would not read my data, fortunately I had a backup copy, so I just overwrote the Access MDB files.

 

- I had a fair investment in the base data - 100 cars already logged into the system with pics, codes etc, sound file changes and so on.

 

I am however ready to eat humble pie on my lack of understanding of how powerful the program is.

And I am not as ungrateful as my criticisms might make me sound!

 

I still don't understand a bunch of things, I'll P.M. you my email address, and you can kick my butt here or by email for the criticisms that are eroneous - perfectly happy for you to do it here, which might help others who perhaps might struggle to get to grips with it.

 

More than happy to be a sounding board or beta tester, though I am not in the same League as you, the Doctor etc.

 

Hi SlotNZ,

 

many thanks for your quick reply. It's nice to get it as it's usefull to improve the software ;)

 

> and I would like to see the "tournament types" able to be renamed to something that makes sense to me.

Yeah. The tournaments have been added on demand, thus they were named as asked by the slot racers. I added an enhancement request to make this name parametrized. FYI : there is a short tournament rule description each time you select one of them (below the selection combo)

 

> I still can't figure out whether it has the capability to run several "rounds" of a tournament, with incremental scoring - say for a weekly series

A tournament can be run during several weeks with score incrementation (ex : one tournament race per week). You just have to restore the tournament as ur30 saves the tournament in its current status each time a race is finished.

Now there is a lack as ur30 does not manage several "rounds" of a tournament, like playing a tournament type every weeks, then incrementing the scores. Added as enhancement request.

 

> - eg race pane that just WOULD NOT change to the chosen option.

Logged as bug. Could you send me some more details to reproduce it (support@uracerweb.org) ?

 

> It would not allow me to just install an updated version, I had to delete the .24 to install the .26 For anyone not familiar with handling diectory trees manually, this would have meant loss of data from deleting the old directories, or overwriting the databases with the new install.

Agreed. Logged as bug & reproduced (raised by couplke of users) => installation proc under investigation for quick fix.

 

> I had a fair investment in the base data - 100 cars already logged into the system with pics, codes etc, sound file changes and so on.

=> so do need the settings to be protected (see above)

 

> I am however ready to eat humble pie on my lack of understanding of how powerful the program is. And I am not as ungrateful as my criticisms might make me sound!

Gotcha ;) ur30 embedds a lot of features, that's why it seems to be "circonvoluted". Features are added, added... So well a GUI clean up will be needed soon. Added as enhancement request.

 

> I'll P.M. you my email address, and you can kick my butt here

I won't!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The "old blacks" scare me! Just post your questions on the forum, then I'd be able to answer. We can start a dedicated topic there if you want.

 

Thanks again & Race on!

 

/P.

Edited by Ricky Torpedo
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Ricky Torpedo and I are bouncing emails back and forth.

So good to see a guy who's "gift to the hobby" has just been criticised, responding so positively. I feel humbled.

 

I've keystroke described a couple of bugs, and given him a few suggestions I think would improve the GUI and perhaps add some uniformity, plus made some suggestions for expansion of the program.

 

For those of you that don't realise this, the base data for UR30 is held in Microsoft Access. This means it can be hacked about and used any old way you care, and exported to Excel (though not through the program at this point), and used to create more types of data, records, reports etc if a "front end" is created.

 

If he doesn't send a "hit man" to stop me generating more work/ideas soon, he'll end up either buried, working 24/7 till the stars begin to fall, or wind up with a padded room for an office. ;);)

Recovering Lapsed Slot Addict :ph34r:  *  Custodian of many used screws (mostly loose :rolleyes:)  *  Total kidder  *  Companion of other delusional slot addicts :lol:  

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