Roger that, it looks really good, I am looking forward to trying it out. But instead of snow its been raining for three days and the mud is a foot deep, I don't know where I will set it up so it doesn't sink away!!

 

to BarrelRacerDad:
Here is a quick little guide I put together for using the device..... it is all pretty basic but I thought I would jot them down and send you a copy..... I might update it later to add a bill of materials.....

View attachment Laser Activated Digital Trigger.pdf

B. Morse

 

did I mention that I hate BMorse?

but damn, Why not make the rest of us look bad while your at it?

....Seriously good work.....

 

Did ya get my mailer today? I am pretty excited about this thing! Looks awesome, I am going to incorporate some LEDs that show to the top or the back (towards the crowd) on my daughters model (WOW factor) one red and one green, how will I illuminate the one for when the signal is broken. (I will just have a green power on led, thats easy) Really looking forward to trying this thing out. Do you all remember the question about hacking into a standard stopwatch and soldering leads onto the pins of the start/stop switch?(for external input) Has anyone tried this?

 

Did ya get my mailer today? I am pretty excited about this thing! Looks awesome, I am going to incorporate some LEDs that show to the top or the back (towards the crowd) on my daughters model (WOW factor) one red and one green, how will I illuminate the one for when the signal is broken. (I will just have a green power on led, thats easy) Really looking forward to trying this thing out. Do you all remember the question about hacking into a standard stopwatch and soldering leads onto the pins of the start/stop switch?(for external input) Has anyone tried this?

Nope, nothing yet on the mailer ... maybe tomorrow...

Since you mention wow factor, how many riders usually compete in a competition / group?? The reason I was asking was because I was playing around with a couple of small stopwatches, and I did get it to work with a couple of cheap ones, but not much of any other functionality except start and stop, so I got bored with that pretty quickly and started thinking about a couple of other things you could do... for the wow factor I was wondering about an LED display (7 segment or similar) that shows time for the current rider (this way it could be a standalone device without the need for an external timer/counter).... of course this is where things get a little more interesting, we would have to design it from scratch, incorporate the timer, display and trigger all in one unit, that can be triggered by a laser or even some long range infra red transmitter (that way we can make those "what about lasers in the kids eyes" people relax a bit....), and possibly add in a couple other trigger inputs to trigger it by another means (switch or other photo interrupter device), include a wireless module for remotely triggering timer device on a PC or other unit such as the timer module you have now, etc.... just some thoughts.....

Anyways to get back to the current "device", you should be able to easily integrate a dual LED display, although you may have to power them off the timer/counter modules power source, basically we would be "splitting" the triggers output to trigger the timer and toggle the states of 2 LED's.... possibly a 7404 Hex buffer IC would do the trick.... let me take a look at the counters schematic again and I will be back...

B. Morse

 

I think something like this will do (I will try it out this weekend, will give me something to do while I drink my coffee in the A.M.), I might be able to integrate something better by the time you get your stuff, that way you can incorporate the whole LED indicators right in with the target enclosure and power it all off 1 source, then the timer/counter module can still be completely isolated from all your circuits....


B. Morse

 

did I mention that I hate BMorse?

but damn, Why not make the rest of us look bad while your at it?

....Seriously good work.....

I can feel the love now ! Thanks!

B. Morse

 

My thoughts from the timer and display kind of cetered around the Xnote to the computer and an LCD or large display for our Show (our County 4-H show, and our county youth show) These events are all sponsored by the county 4-H project club, and usually have about 80-100 riders, and the parents are in a grandstand. With a commercial timer (check out the Polaris, by Farm Tek) you can get a LED seven segment display (wireless)
with the timer package for about 1300 dollars. Way out of our groups price range (all donation and fundraisers). My family shows on the WSCA curcuit (check out photos I mailed, by the way, got lots more if interestedLOL) and some of the big shows have all the bells and whistles, Dual display timers, top ten times and rider number just so you can watch the competition, and scrolling messages and announcements. At our show we had two people in folding chairs with a stopwatch and a cellphone. How accurate is that? And the two moms timing were so busy talking they missed a couple of rides!! So it is my effort to come up with something different, as I said, I am going to have my oldest daughter put together a timer kit (kitsRus) and a detector set as a 4-H electronics project, and donate it to the county program when she is done displaying it.

 

The kit I built for the timer has a 4 segment LED screen that is fairly large (not large enough for a whole crowd to see and I built it into a box with an on/off switch, a start stop button, and a reset button. I haven't mounted the timer to the box because I have to cut the hole for the display. I also want to have external quick connect for the wires (think stereo spring clips, black and red) The box is big enough to incorporate wireless RF link to the detector, and I have a huge power supply (8 AA batteries)

 

As for the cheap stopwatches, I was thinking of them as a tool at home for practice, so I don't have to drag a nicely built timer out to the field where we practice, and the power supply for the watch seems to last forever. All I would need is start/stop/ and manual reset.

 

As for the cheap stopwatches, I was thinking of them as a tool at home for practice, so I don't have to drag a nicely built timer out to the field where we practice, and the power supply for the watch seems to last forever. All I would need is start/stop/ and manual reset.

With both that I played with, the switches actually connected to ground to start / stop the stopwatch..... so connecting one side of the optocouplers output to one side of the switch and the other to the other side of the switch worked as if just pushing the switch..... you can take a meter, set it for DC, connect the black lead to the - side of the battery, and then touch the red to one of the switches' contacts, and you should see a + voltage on one and 0 volts on the other, when you have the red meter lead on the one reading a + voltage, and you press the switch watch how it switches from + volts to 0 volts.... you would connect the + side of the triggers output to the switch contact that reads a + voltage, then connect the - output from the trigger to the switch contact that read 0 volts., this should start/stop the stop watch whenever you block the laser light when pointed at the trigger......

B. Morse

 

My thoughts from the timer and display kind of cetered around the Xnote to the computer and an LCD or large display for our Show (our County 4-H show, and our county youth show) These events are all sponsored by the county 4-H project club, and usually have about 80-100 riders, and the parents are in a grandstand. With a commercial timer (check out the Polaris, by Farm Tek) you can get a LED seven segment display (wireless)
with the timer package for about 1300 dollars. Way out of our groups price range (all donation and fundraisers). My family shows on the WSCA curcuit (check out photos I mailed, by the way, got lots more if interestedLOL) and some of the big shows have all the bells and whistles, Dual display timers, top ten times and rider number just so you can watch the competition, and scrolling messages and announcements. At our show we had two people in folding chairs with a stopwatch and a cellphone. How accurate is that? And the two moms timing were so busy talking they missed a couple of rides!! So it is my effort to come up with something different, as I said, I am going to have my oldest daughter put together a timer kit (kitsRus) and a detector set as a 4-H electronics project, and donate it to the county program when she is done displaying it.

I checked out that Farm Tek stuff, WOW! I can not believe some of those prices!!

And quit ruining my surprise!

This should be a great electronics project for your daughter (and you)...

B. Morse

 

Now you can see why I wanted to build this apparatus, they are just crazy!!

 

And holy cow-18 PAGES for this thread?!! Thats awesome!!!

 

Finally got your mailer, great looking family you got there.....

I will be packing the stuff up in a bit (might have to get a bigger box, the one you sent just fits the built target, I don't want it to get damaged so I will get a bigger box so I can pack some packing material around it.... I will most likely just send it via UPS, that way I can have a tracking number also....) I will throw some extra components in so you can try out that LED indicator circuit, which I played with this morning and it should definitely work for what you want....

One thing, when you get the Lenses and stuff, be careful with the lenses, the coating on them can get easily scratched ...


B. Morse

 

I have everything ready to be shipped out, the only thing you may have to pickup is the circuit board (or you can use the one you have) and a couple of LED's, the only ones I had were 3mm ones, kind of small and not so bright if you want someone to see them in daylight....

I threw in some various components, including some small voltage regulators in case you want to power the LED indicators from the counters power source (9volts) you can use these to drop the voltage down to 5 for use with the LEDs, and they are smaller than standard ones you can pickup from Rat Shack....

Here is a link to each device for the datasheet, so you can see the pinout of each IC:
78L05 +5 Voltage Regulator 100ma >> http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail&name=296-1365-2-ND

SN74LS04 Hex Inverter IC >> http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail&name=296-1629-5-ND

UA741CN IC >> http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail&name=497-6784-5-ND




B. Morse

 

Glad to hear you got it, I was wondering what type of curcuit we could generat to light LEDs on the timer control box when this thing is hooked up and beaming (aligned) correctly? Since I want the connection from detector to timer as simple as possible (TWO wires, KISS principle) I can't think of a way to light an LED on the box because basaically it is an open curcuit until the beam is broken and the curcuit closes. (Again, just for the wow factor, to impress the judges for project submission to county fair/hopefully state fair)It is not really neccessary for operation, maybe I'm thinking too complicated? If something simple strikes you, tell me what you think Thanks Jon

 

Glad to hear you got it, I was wondering what type of curcuit we could generat to light LEDs on the timer control box when this thing is hooked up and beaming (aligned) correctly? Since I want the connection from detector to timer as simple as possible (TWO wires, KISS principle) I can't think of a way to light an LED on the box because basaically it is an open curcuit until the beam is broken and the curcuit closes. (Again, just for the wow factor, to impress the judges for project submission to county fair/hopefully state fair)It is not really neccessary for operation, maybe I'm thinking too complicated? If something simple strikes you, tell me what you think Thanks Jon

Yes I did in post # 166 (wow over 100 posts just in this thread), it will have to mount in the box with the timer circuit since it is powered off of the same power supply as the timer, I packaged up what yo need for it also, except for the LED's, I didn't have any on hand of any bright enough to use in daylight, you can probably pick a red and a green one to use.... basically this will connect to the timer as shown in the circuit, then the 2 wires coming from the trigger will connect to this.... the 2 LED's will toggle depending on if the laser is on or off....

P.S.
Pad 1 will connect to the triggers + output and Pad 2 will connect to the triggers - output.

B. Morse

 

It all shipped out via UPS today so you should be getting the stuff in a couple of days or so....

B. Morse

 

Thank you for your time and quick response, really looking forward to diggin in