Clean Start

Patrick said:
Is there an app to generate more excuses?
Basically skipped any sustained workouts in March -
Vacation didn't help - when my original plans got the kibosh, I didn't recover.
And so goes the "bounce"


I'm going the opposite of @Karate Monkey with my home projects.

Here are a bunch of race clocks - 3'x1' - they are used at marathons.
Note they are two sided..

View attachment 210342

The segments of the digits are high-contrast neon yellow??? There are no "lights" -
the segments get flipped by a coil that is energized in a certain direction (review your magnetism from 6th grade.)
Cool eh

The clock with the missing minutes has a problem on the logic board - it was built in the mid '80s
when all the good music came out! The designer worked at Bell Labs. High concentration of Deadheads.

The logic is 'hard wired' - so there isn't anything to reprogram.

The guts look like...

View attachment 210343


The lack of flexibility is bothering me - so I've decided to replace the boards with a microprocessor.
Maybe add some internet-of-things connectivity, and spy on the people that come near the clock.
I mean, "send offers which match their interests."

Don't want to fry the coils with bad programming,
so i whipped up an LED display for proof of concept.


View attachment 210344

Yup - major geek action here. The microprocessor is an Arfuino Uno, simple and cheap.
Ignoring everything other than the display:

The first position is what is showing on the clock.
The fourth position s what I want to display next.
The second position is(are) the segments which need to be turned "off" to go from current to next
The third position is(are) the segments which need to be turned "on" to go from current to next

in an LED - it is just on or off - with the race clock - the change is from off->on and on->off are two different actions.

Why?
Cause the first thing you thought was, just go with "on" for all the ones that are supposed to be "on" and
"off" for all those that need to be turned "off" - or simply, do something to all seven segments, then worries
about transitions are moot.

That's true. But since sustainability is a buzzword now - and these clocks are battery powered,
each flip has a cost (12v x 120mA x 25ms.) When I simulated an hour of clock time counting seconds,
the number of flips was reduced by ~60% using this logic. (energizing a coil costs the same whether is flips something or not)

Flipping the segments also has a failure rate - more so with the horizontal ones since they deal with gravity.
Think of a 3 ->4. if the top segment doesn't flip "off" (haha) the 4 will look like a 9.
In the 10s of seconds or 10s of minutes would be out of bounds -
in the seconds it isn't a big deal - cause 5 is coming! and it needs the top segment - but in the minutes, it is going to be
5 minutes ahead for the whole minute. (you wouldn't want to be 5 minutes behind pace at the 5k mark)

More fun with clocks coming...
Click to expand...

I know a couple of those guys. Maybe even one of the ones who designed it.

Go watch the flip-board in Newark Penn. They finished the refurbishment 7(?) years ago. Didn't they pull the one that was in New York? Didn't see it the last time through Penn.
 
Karate Monkey said:
I know a couple of those guys. Maybe even one of the ones who designed it.

Go watch the flip-board in Newark Penn. They finished the refurbishment 7(?) years ago. Didn't they pull the one that was in New York? Didn't see it the last time through Penn.
Click to expand...

I'll find out his name - I know his shop was down south somewhere (relative to me anyway)
They started out in Huntington Sta - DIgital Devices. Think they were purchased by Electro-Numerics.
Passed not too long ago.
-----
Arrivals/Departures board retired it in NYP -
Nice piece about signs and Grand Central - https://gothamist.com/news/grand-ce...ard-is-getting-replaced-with-brighter-screens
-----
For even more electro-mechanical stuff - this is a 1950s (i think) chicago coin puck bowler - in my basement.
Not sure I'd plug it in without a couple fire extinguishers around at this point - but when i got it 30 years ago,
it worked fine.

looks like this - mine is holding a bunch of records off the floor. Cause they are going to worth something.....
(i have some original Beatles stuff, so maybe $50)

031-1024x768.jpg


guts! This is my machine.

It is very well laid-out, even tho it looks like spaghetti.
On the back wall is a state-machine - status of each pin, and then the combination can then react to inputs.
scoring is done by magnetic actuators turning a wheel, see bottom pic.

IMG_3794.JPG
IMG_3793.JPG
 
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Patrick said:
I'll find out his name - I know his shop was down south somewhere (relative to me anyway)
They started out in Huntington Sta - DIgital Devices. Think they were purchased by Electro-Numerics.
Passed not too long ago.
-----
Arrivals/Departures board retired it in NYP -
Nice piece about signs and Grand Central - https://gothamist.com/news/grand-ce...ard-is-getting-replaced-with-brighter-screens
-----
For even more electro-mechanical stuff - this is a 1950s (i think) chicago coin puck bowler - in my basement.
Not sure I'd plug it in without a couple fire extinguishers around at this point - but when i got it 30 years ago,
it worked fine.

looks like this - mine is holding a bunch of records off the floor. Cause they are going to worth something.....
(i have some original Beatles stuff, so maybe $50)

View attachment 210408

guts! This is my machine.

It is very well laid-out, even tho it looks like spaghetti.
On the back wall is a state-machine - status of each pin, and then the combination can then react to inputs.
scoring is done by magnetic actuators turning a wheel, see bottom pic.

View attachment 210406View attachment 210407
Click to expand...
I always wanted one of those bowling machines, what do they go for?
 
I can smell the phenolic PCB's just by looking at the picture.
As for those relays, didn't the 60's Mercury Cougars have similar to work the sequential rear direction indicators? :p
 
GSTim said:
I always wanted one of those bowling machines, what do they go for?
Click to expand...

I saw one at Collingwood in the back corner. Guys typically "fire sale" stuff like that there (next to the highway overpass. They buy an estate, and then realize they can't get rid of it.

@Patrick you should visit the Museè Mechanique in SF. Automata of the late 19th/early 20th century. They've got old arcade machines, and the best part is that you can actually *play* most everything on the floor. It's small, but worth it. Poke your head in the back, they do the conversation/repair there.
 
Karate Monkey said:
I saw one at Collingwood in the back corner. Guys typically "fire sale" stuff like that there (next to the highway overpass. They buy an estate, and then realize they can't get rid of it.

@Patrick you should visit the Museè Mechanique in SF. Automata of the late 19th/early 20th century. They've got old arcade machines, and the best part is that you can actually *play* most everything on the floor. It's small, but worth it. Poke your head in the back, they do the conversation/repair there.
Click to expand...
Have you seen the collection at the Morristown museum?

I don't think it's crazy, but it is local
 
Santapez said:
Have you seen the collection at the Morristown museum?

I don't think it's crazy, but it is local
Click to expand...

Yes. I was big disappointed that they refused to play anything, when we told them that we traveled to be there, and couldn't (ever) come back when they were running any of them.

I understand, but am also very disappointed.

The one in SF is more of a 'petting zoo' situation, than an art gallery.
 
Since i'm messing around with clocks and race timing - figured I'd post this.
A finish line camera runs at 1,000 frames per second - that way they can get 1/1,000 second timing.
A phone can do 60 frames per second - so it is good for 1/10 second timing.
A lynx finish line camera and software will set you back about $5,000 -
the app was $20. and it can export results just like the lynx system.

The software crops the image of the finish line down to 100 or so pixels wide, and stitches them together.
So the image is stationary, with the lower axis being time - if you looked through a vertical slot, and moved the image
under it, that is what the camera records.

The start time is noted, and the offsets (athletes' torso) can be calculated.
s/w can id a person, but not their torso right now, so there is a manual part.

After tagging the athletes, a results image is posted. Results down the left side.
The markings for the lanes were not differentiated from the finish line, so the lanes are not distinct.

IMG_4217.JPG


This is very quick to read/save - but not to tag.
If there are two devices involved - one can keep recording, while the other marks the times.
Much more accurate than hand timing, and ties can be decided where they can't be with the eye.
 
iman29 said:
when i looked i thought this was one of those games " spot the differences "

now I cant stop looking at which pairs are not set to the same time.

however, none of these have HR or Sleep data so they are useless to me.
Click to expand...

Two were different. One does not have a battery, the other the crown was not pushed in, so it was right twice per day
 
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