On Fri, May 28, 2004 at 07:03:06PM -0000, Richard Urschel wrote:
> How accurate are our timers?
> Unless our timing software confirms a trip on both the front and
> rear wheels the perceived time discrepancy may be due to
> intermittent failures of the timers to consistently trip.
I don't know the answer to how our timer handles multiple trips, but I
wonder: Is the beam low enough to pass under your Elan? I'm not even
sure it would pass under my Miata.
My guess would be that the start or finish "event" is recorded as soon
as the timer sees that the beam is broken, and then won't record
another "event" for a small period of time.
I've never seen our timer, or the timing software used in Sacramento
or CSCC, warn about "only 1 trigger"...and that would be a real
problem with the karts or low cars, because they would not produce a
double trigger. So I don't think that the capability you're asking
about is there.
I think that the best way to ensure a reliable trigger is to be
careful when aligning the lights, try not to point either box
generally towards the rising or setting sun, and perhaps make foam or
rubber hoods/visors for the timer boxes to shade them from sunlight.
If a bad cable is discovered, it should be removed from the motorhome
so that nobody tries to use it later.
--
john@idsfa.net John Stimson
http://www.idsfa.net/~john/ HMC Physics '94
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