Swimming lap counter and timer

Thread Starter

Helpme5

Joined Feb 21, 2012
4
I am doing my year 12 Hsc and for my major design project I'm trying to make a simple touch board and display that you bring with you to your swimming training and it tells you what lap your on and what time you got for that lap. I have done a bit of electronics in year 9 & 10 but I'm fairly new to it and I was wondering if anyone could please help me. Any comments would be much appreciated :)
 

luvv

Joined May 26, 2011
191
What kind of touch pad are you thinking of?

There is a few capacitive,pressure,conductive along w/ a few other trigger methods not involving actual touch.

Something like this?http://www.finisinc.com/support/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Lap-Track-User-Guide1.pdf

If you wanted to be original, i would think a loop coil and a magnetic wrist band or ring would be sweet.
When you put your hand through the coil it would register just like a metal detector.

-luvv-
 

Thread Starter

Helpme5

Joined Feb 21, 2012
4
Ive thought of a few different types of switches including the one you said (metal ring thing) but I just want to keep it simple and be able to make the thing and get it looking good. Then if I've knocked it over in a few months I can make it more complex with the left over time ive got. If you get what I mean.
The link you gave me is basically a advanced model of what I was thinking. Make the display screen a bit bigger have a simple button switch.

I want to touch it to start it swim up swim back, touch it again see my time and lap displayed. Then touch it again resetting the timer and flicking over the lap counter.
All I need help with is the circuit, and how to design it can you help me? Please :)
 

Wendy

Joined Mar 24, 2008
23,415
Sounds like a micro switch or tactile switch with a board on top would be appropriate to me. The actual counter could be done with descrete logic or a pic. The pic would be much, much simplier, and I believe you could find much of the code already written.

Having said that I don't do pics. I can do descrete logic. What kind of system do you want to use?
 

Thread Starter

Helpme5

Joined Feb 21, 2012
4
As I said I'm pretty new to electronics but I know the fundamentals. What do you mean by you can do a descrete logic system?
 

Wendy

Joined Mar 24, 2008
23,415
Discrete means a bunch of individual chips. While doing it with a pic (a brand of µC) means a few chips (maybe as few as one) and lots of programming. You are trading off one type of work for another, and probably making it a lot cheaper due to quantity of parts.

I can draw up a simple timer easy enough, I have something close with a 2/3 written project here...

Digital clocks
 

Thread Starter

Helpme5

Joined Feb 21, 2012
4
It would be awesome if you could draw me up a simple timer circuit, I looked into using a pic like you said and learning all the coding stuff looks pretty hard and ide rather avoid it if I can haha
 
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