ISSA - International Slalom Skateboarding Association

As many of you know I manufacture a Timer. I am very appreciative of those of you who are using it. I have had some requests to build a duel lane timer.
I just need a little input on what you would like, and how much would be a great price.
One gentleman asked for a single starting line, and dual finish lines. That's easy enough.
But I get the impression that most have dual starting and dual finish lines.
Does anyone start the timer manually then have dual finish lines?
Tell me what needs to be addressed, and I'll see if I can work it out for you.

Thanks for your input.


Sincerely,
Rusty Strauss
Equine Electronics

Rusty Strauss wrote:As many of you know I manufacture a Timer. I am very appreciative of those of you who are using it. I have had some requests to build a duel lane timer.
I just need a little input on what you would like, and how much would be a great price.
One gentleman asked for a single starting line, and dual finish lines. That's easy enough.
But I get the impression that most have dual starting and dual finish lines.
Does anyone start the timer manually then have dual finish lines?
Tell me what needs to be addressed, and I'll see if I can work it out for you.

Thanks for your input.


Sincerely,
Rusty Strauss
Equine Electronics

Some suggestions I would have are as follows:

1) A timer which can run by itself (without computer) for training (small cheap display) AND be able to upload times to the computer for big races.

2) Optionally have both lanes start with a COMMON start (at some signal generated or given to the timer), or INDIVIDUAL starts (start each lane with its own start gate/switch).

You might be able to figure out some of the ways we use our timers by looking at the Chronocone timer user's guide here and copying or improving on some of the features:

http://home.comcast.net/~pchewn/Chronoc ... ne2004.htm

Feel free to contact me about the Chronocone timing system -- it is an open shareware system that has no "market". I'm willing to share all of the bugs and secrets with you as you develop your timer.


I have found skateboarders to be REALLY cheap when spending money on timing equipment. The market is small too.... But good luck!

-- Pat Chewning

Rusty,

I bought one of your timing systems. It's great. Easy to setup and working like a charm. I realize you're asking about dual lane systems and I don't really have anything to add that might help you out but.....

I do have a question. I was out running cones with your timer yesterday and thought it would be great if you had a stop watch that would handle much more than 5 individual times that could be docked to a computer and the data (all the times recorded) could be uploaded to a spreadsheet or something. Is that possible?

Just wondering.

Joel

Hey Rusty - glad to see you posting here. There are a handful of real timing gurus on this site. You'll get good input for sure.

I asked you about the common start/individual finish-type dual lane timer. My beef with individual start dual lane timers is the confusion it can create when a spectator watches a racer cross the finish line second, yet win the heat because his/her actual time was faster. With a common start dual lane timer, the only way this could happen is if the racer that reaches the finish line first hits alot of cones and is highly penalized. There ARE common start/individual finish timers available......but pricey.

The simplicity, reliability, and low-cost of your timers is what attracted me.

I'm about 10 years behind the computer generation, so I offer no input when it comes to timer/computer integration.

Regards, Tom "Robert" Thompson

just used our equine for the first official race and it worked very well. i am interestened in going the next step and setting up a dual lane format.which means,with one other stopwatch,we should be able to do a common start(like a trigger) and use the existing eyes to run a dual finish.this should work well for smaller races.i am interested to see if equine can come up with a false start/dq option like the chronocone.
btw,i have a couple years experience with setting up and running trakmate and this worked flawless.i literally set it up in 10 minutes.if you know me,thats a miracle.cfav

Just got my system in today, a few questions: What is a good height for the beams to be at ? Where do most people place the reciever box at ? Lastly, how are you mounting your beams, on tripods, crates, etc. ? Looking for any advice on these questions. Thanks to all who reply.

hi eric.we started out thinking we would use little tripods(like table top models for cameras)but quite frankly,we just tape them to the ground now.i have also just taped the eyes to the tops of cones.the eyes line up super easy.you may want to upgrade to alkaline batteries in the eyes as the ones they send with do not last very long at all.but so far,this has been a very reliable system so far.just make sure everyone understands not to walk through the beams walking back up the hill,tripping the timer,thats been our only issue.cfav

Thanks chris I was thinking along the same lines using cones as stands. I'm going to try them out this evening once the 99 degree temps cool down.

The Equine timer has been used for all of the UK single lane Wasteland races, and has worked without a glitch every time.

Rather than leaving the units on the ground, we first set up the sensors on mini tripods. The casing on the beam unit is thin and doesn't lend itself well to the threading of the tripod stand. Instead of gluing further thread inside the unit in order to stabilise the beam, a much simpler mounting system was found.

Mick Reiss is the webmaster for http://www.ukslalomskateboarding.com/. He is also the designer/ manufacturer for http://www.remotestand.com/. (That IS British ladies slalom and Euro Jr Champ, Ella Roggero in the stand promo!). Mick took one look at me fiddling with adjustible mini-tripod heads and then dashed to his bag and produced four RemoteStands. "Give these a go," he said.



Made out of black powder-coated aluminium, the beam unit is simply attached to the stand with a powerful velcro. Rubber feet stop movement on tarmac or concrete. Slap it on, point the beam and you're away. Simple. Furthermore, the cost of four Remote Stands is less than the price of one mini tripod in the UK: http://www.remotestand.co.uk/inter.htm And yes, these are available to the World.

Here's a few shots on the timing beam itself:



The stand has proved to be robust, stable and windproof; will stack away, or as the last pictures show, will hold and protect a beam unit vertically. Advert over. For the record, I have no interest as such in this product, except in use alone. It is just a very simple and rapid solution to the beam mounting issue.

Back to the topic, UKSSA would be interested in a dual lane Equine timing system that has both single and dual start capacity, with independent finish times. And one that is cordless!

Very interested in getting this system for our PhD slalom club in Moscow!!!

Anyone tested its reliability and validity against, say, a Trakmate?

Vlad -

Back at the Shamrock Slalom in Georgia over a year ago, a trackmate, equine and chronocone were run all at the same time. All I can really recall is that the times were not distinguishable between the 3 systems on that day. Given, the start and finish lines were not exactly the same (beams vs. tapestrips), none of it was exact, but the times were consistent. That was with the wired version of the equine system. I have the newer wireless version, and have not compared it to a trackmate. It works like a charm however. We've used it for single lane racing in Georgia - and it worked great.

RonO

Thanks Ron!

we have a wired version of equine.great for single lane racing,easy to set up,but no dual action unless you buy an extra stop watch and find a way to trigger at the same time.that said,super reliable .cfav

Whatever happened to these timers?

I think they were bought out be another company, but I can't seem to find any info on them now?

Curt C wrote:Whatever happened to these timers?

I think they were bought out be another company, but I can't seem to find any info on them now?

http://www.event-solutions.com/equine_electronics

Equine Electronics

Rusty Strauss
20705 SE Outer Rd.
Peculiar, MO 64078

816-256-3877

e-mail: sales@equineelectronics.com

Or:

http://www.tractronix.com/index.html