Multiple finished cause invalid results?

[rdeis]

We had some problems at the pack race with the timer feeding obviously bad results- 1st place reported 3.00s and others slower, every time there was an error. It almost looked like it was normalizing results to 3.00 somehow...

Valid results showed the fastest cars running in the ~4s range, and we got good results on all but a few heats.

I *think* this was caused when the timer recorded 2 finishes on one lane because either a car jumped lanes, or the finish judge accidentelly tripped the finish timer of a car after the race but before the track was reset.

Has anyone else seen this? How can you prevent it?

I didn't see any problems if max race time was allowed to expire, so I thought that configuring the time-out value to be tightly behind (or even slightly ahead of) the slower cars might help?

[gpraceman]

I believe I recall that happening with another person using The Judge (or maybe it was SmartLine) timer. It turned out to be a start switch issue. The timer will show you the correct finish order for a race even if the start switch is not working. The times going to the software would start at 3 seconds and go up from there.

If the start switch is working, you should see the green light on the timer go off when the start gate opens. If not, check the switch mounting, wiring, and the connection to the timer. If you only saw this on some heats, then maybe the problem is with the wire connections.

[rdeis]

So the multiple finishes may have nothing to do with it...

Thanks- I'll check the switch first!

[gpraceman]

If the start switch is working, you should see the green light on the timer go off when the start gate opens. If not, check the switch mounting, wiring, and the connection to the timer.

Also, the green light mentioned above only applies to The Judge Timer, not SmartLine.

[John Shreffler]

Is the finish line The Judge?

I am in the process of a firmware change where the green light will extinguish when the timing starts. This will give immediate feedback on the timer status. GPRM does a good job of making this unnecessary by forcing a reset before each race, but not everyone uses GPRM. This change will be available as soon as v 2.03 beta tests are complete, since existing chip stock will be reprogrammed.