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      12-02-2011, 03:54 PM   #67
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Randy and I talked about the gear selection issue at VIR. I just don't know how it could read what the actual gear is. The ECU does not have a sensor that tells it this. I verified this by going through the WDS and cannot find anything that would tell the ECU what gear the transmission is in.

Calculated gear selection???? maybe.
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      12-02-2011, 08:05 PM   #68
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[QUOTE=sabbanick;10906583]On the solo DL is there an actually calibration mode that it goes into?

When I select it a screen briefly comes up stating its resetting it and thats it.
QUOTE]

Quote:
Originally Posted by RandysV10 View Post
The calibration is performed when you have the Solo connected to your laptop using RS2.
Randy--are you referring to telling the Solo, via the ECU configuration, that it needs to calculate the gears by going through the "driving around" calibration process which I've previously described, or do you mean that the Z4M ECU protocol that we're all pushing from RS2 to the Solo already contains the speed-rpm relationships needed to determine the gears, making the "driving around' process unnecessary? (Does that question even make sense? I pity the other guys reading this thread, who without having a Solo they're grappling with, wonder what the hell the four of us are talking about...)

If we do, indeed, still need to "drive around", I recall the Solo timing out of calibration mode very quickly--so find a deserted road where you can stop, put the Solo in calibration mode and immediately move off in 1st. Then, engage each gear for 5-6 seconds before you come to a stop.

Quote:
Originally Posted by sabbanick View Post
So under live recordings via the ONLINE tab in RS2 the gear data is coming up as ERROR. When I go into solo to reset the gear calibration, Rs2 is telling me that the USB driver is not updated ... seems like an easy fix, but the driver for USB is updated and I restarted to computer to be sure. Result is the same.

Randy did you finally get the Solo DL to read your gears?
Sitting here on the couch, I get the same "ERR" message, but mine has worked fine once I finally got a successful calibration drive done.

Do you mean you're driving around with the Solo connected to your laptop and to the CAN cable, and you're getting the error?

Looking at Randy's file that's posted on TrailBrake, he does have calculated gear data. I'm having a heard time making sense of it, though. Randy--did it look accurate to you?

Boy, I didn't think we'd have so much trouble with this channel!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shipkiller View Post
Randy and I talked about the gear selection issue at VIR. I just don't know how it could read what the actual gear is. The ECU does not have a sensor that tells it this. I verified this by going through the WDS and cannot find anything that would tell the ECU what gear the transmission is in.

Calculated gear selection???? maybe.
Definitely calculated--no direct data. Does it by examining the speed-rpm relationship, which is unique in each gear. At some point, the Solo needs to be taught (or provided) with the each gear's ratio.
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      12-02-2011, 09:07 PM   #69
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HAHA this post is getting on the more technical side and without owning the device and the software(RS2) your left in the dust. I think I will post a video of the solo, its features and the issue I'm having getting the gear calibration to work. We are making it seem that using this device is complex when in reality its pretty user friendly.

Quick question for you Frank ... if you select the Solo to display the gear you are in does it actually display the gear for you? I get the following {----}


For me,the device shows no physical sign of it entering a calibration mode when I choose to reset it. I briefly get an on screen message stating something to the effect of "resetting gear calibration" and thats it.

When I do this connected to RS2 under the ONLINE tab an error comes up on RS2 stating that the USB driver is missing ....

Ill show you tomorrow when I post the video as its easy to get lost in words.


Not having this feature isn't the end of the world, but if I can get to work all the better.
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      12-03-2011, 04:16 AM   #70
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The gear channel really isn't that important and you can make a math channel for it based on the wheel speed and rpm. That is all that the calibration is doing for you.

For analysis you are mostly using speed, lat and long G, steering, brake pressure, and throttle position.
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      12-03-2011, 06:11 AM   #71
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Randy,

I was looking at your data file, and all the laps in Run 14 don't line up with the rest of the laps on the Measures Graph; looks like they're off about 3500 feet.

Does your original data look off too? Any thoughts about why? Did you happen to reset start/finish before Run 14?

I noticed this when I looked at your 2:28 lap using my track map, and it has you doing 110mph through Turn 4 (Man, you're GOOD!). The other Runs/laps all look good vs teh map, so wonder what happened on Run 14?

Frank
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      12-03-2011, 06:14 AM   #72
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sabbanick View Post
Quick question for you Frank ... if you select the Solo to display the gear you are in does it actually display the gear for you?
Dunno. I'll test it today and report back.
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      12-03-2011, 11:36 AM   #73
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt Romanowski View Post
The gear channel really isn't that important and you can make a math channel for it based on the wheel speed and rpm. That is all that the calibration is doing for you.

For analysis you are mostly using speed, lat and long G, steering, brake pressure, and throttle position.
Agree, but I think it's turned into one of those "principle" kind of things--can't let this little electronic thing get the best of us!

Quote:
Originally Posted by MFGJR View Post
Dunno. I'll test it today and report back.
Yes, I can display gear on a custom screen. I successfully recalibrated a couple times today, but I batted maybe .200 on my attempts. I have a new technique for you to try: (1) Find a deserted road or a big, empty parking lot. Note that you'll need to get above idle speed in 5th and 6th for the Solo to be able to distinguish between the upper gears. (2) Go to your screen displaying gear, and then go back to the menu, then to system, then to reset gear cailbration. Select "reset" to clear what's in there. (3) After the Solo goes back to the system menu, start rolling very slowly in 1st, and then select "Reset Gear Calibration" again. (4) After 5 or so seconds in 1st, go up thorugh each remaining gear, spending at least 5 seconds in each. As I said, make sure you're getting up above idle in 5th and 6th. If you're lugging in 6th, you need to go faster. By now, your screen has probably reverted to your custom screen showing gear. All you should see is "---" right now. (5) Once you've been through all 6 gears, stop. When the screen swaps over to disply test results (or whatever screen it goes to automatically when the car stops moving), you should see "Stop" at the bottom left--select that. Not sure if that matters, but each time I successfully calibrated I had done that, so go with it. From there, you should be able to drive and see the gear number. Of course, sitting still or otherwise holding the clutch in for an extended period will give you "---".

Let me know how that goes.
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      12-03-2011, 02:28 PM   #74
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Haha awesome. I totally follow you. I'll give it a shot later. Never did a complete run through of the gears; makes perfect sense....thanks.
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      12-03-2011, 07:42 PM   #75
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MFGJR View Post
Randy,

I was looking at your data file, and all the laps in Run 14 don't line up with the rest of the laps on the Measures Graph; looks like they're off about 3500 feet.

Does your original data look off too? Any thoughts about why? Did you happen to reset start/finish before Run 14?

I noticed this when I looked at your 2:28 lap using my track map, and it has you doing 110mph through Turn 4 (Man, you're GOOD!). The other Runs/laps all look good vs teh map, so wonder what happened on Run 14?

Frank
Hey Frank,

Not sure if I remember doing a reset. It was my final/solo lap of the day so I felt everything was coming together pretty good but there is no way that I was 110 through turn 4. I'll have to look at the data tomorrow when my head is not so fuzzy. BTW the new pads and rotors should arrive by Tuesday so I will have them on for the next trip to VIR. Do you guess swap your pads out at the track or are you running them full time?

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      12-03-2011, 10:06 PM   #76
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RandysV10 View Post
Hey Frank,

Not sure if I remember doing a reset. It was my final/solo lap of the day so I felt everything was coming together pretty good but there is no way that I was 110 through turn 4. I'll have to look at the data tomorrow when my head is not so fuzzy. BTW the new pads and rotors should arrive by Tuesday so I will have them on for the next trip to VIR. Do you guess swap your pads out at the track or are you running them full time?

Randy
Here's an example--the blue lap is from run 14, the others are from runs 4, 7 and 10 and their speed traces all make sense vs. the track map. On the blue lap, you can see what's obviously the 130+ peak speed on the back straight showing up--erroneously-- at turn 11. All the run 14 laps are like this.

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It really does look like the start/finish "beacon" somehow got moved before your last run. Playing around with building a new track map from your data, the beacon looks to be in the correct place until you get to run 14, and it then moves to, variously, the Roller Coaster or the kink before turn 3. You might connect the Solo to your computer, launch GPS Manager, click 'Read" over on the right-hand (data logger) side, select VIR from the logger's list of tracks, and see what it says the start/finish lap beacon coordinates are. I have start/finish at lat 36.568571, long -79.207876. If yours has different coordiantes, enter them into Googke Earth and see where they place start/finish.

But what's wierd is that in your video, which is from run 14, the lap time resets in the proper place. You didn't manipulate start/finish in DashWare, right? Very strange...

Oh, and I swap rotors and pads at home, and then drive--cautiously--down to the track. Wasn't a big deal on the PFC 06s.
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      12-04-2011, 11:36 AM   #77
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Thanks Frank



It just as easy as finding open stretch of road,

Then From a stop hitting reset calibration ....

Run through all gears and solo picked up gear once I was in sixth gear.
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      12-04-2011, 12:20 PM   #78
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sabbanick View Post
Thanks Frank

It just as easy as finding open stretch of road,

Then From a stop hitting reset calibration ....

Run through all gears and solo picked up gear once I was in sixth gear.
Now, we're talking!
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      12-04-2011, 12:57 PM   #79
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MFGJR View Post
Here's an example--the blue lap is from run 14, the others are from runs 4, 7 and 10 and their speed traces all make sense vs. the track map. On the blue lap, you can see what's obviously the 130+ peak speed on the back straight showing up--erroneously-- at turn 11...
The plot thickens (can you tell I had another insomnia night?):

It appears that only the Solo-sourced channels are whack--the ECU-sourced channels look fine. In the speed-distance graphs blow, comparing run 10, lap 10 (green) and run 14, lap 3 (blue), the upper pair of lines are from the Solo, while the lower pair's speed data are coming from the ECU. You can see the stagger bewteen laps in the upper set, while the lower laps synch up perfectly. The two green lines look identical, while the profiles of the blue lines differ significantly--see the slope difference between the two blue lines coming up the back straight (indicated by the red line connecting the two).

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Here's another example, the upper set comparing ECU-sourced brake pressure between the two laps, and comparing Solo-sourced lateral accel on the lower pair. Again, the traces synch for the ECU-sourced brake pressure, but the lateral accel is out of synch.

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Bad news, we don't understand what's going on here. What's wierd is that even with the ECU-sourced data, it seems that the Solo has to index the data to a distance, which has to be coming from the GPS. So, my theory that the start-finish beacon was reset may not be the answer. If that was the case, it seems that all channels would be off.

Good news, at least Randy has reliable speed info to compare his best laps that were in run 14--just needs to use the ECU spped channel instead of the GPS speed channel.
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      12-04-2011, 01:48 PM   #80
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Frank for the life of me I can't find in Race Studio where to set how the drk files are written out. I want to have one file for each run to easier match up to my video files. Could you please let me know how you set it?

Thanks,

Randy
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      12-04-2011, 03:33 PM   #81
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RandysV10 View Post
Frank for the life of me I can't find in Race Studio where to set how the drk files are written out. I want to have one file for each run to easier match up to my video files. Could you please let me know how you set it?

Thanks,

Randy
Sure. Connect Solo to computer, launch RaceSyudio, and Select "Download Data" from the main menu. (It may then tell you that there's no data to download, if the Solo is empty--just "OK" past that dialogue box if you get it.) Next, pick Options, and then click on the "One .DRK file for each run" selection. Click OK, and that'll do it.

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      12-04-2011, 04:21 PM   #82
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Guys,

Now that I disocvered the ECU's speed data in Randy's file is good for all runs, I've started having fun analyzing stuff as a way of learning how to do things before i get out there myself.

I've been playing with the Split Report view's theoretical best lap, which requires that you have a track map loaded up. Using my VIR map that has each corner and straight broken out, RS2 grabs the best time among all laps for each of the 17 corners and 6 big/little straights, and comes up with a 2:23 theoretical lap, or 5 seconds faster than what Randy actually put down. This essentially says that if he strung together the weekend's best pass through each individual corner or straight, he'd have done a 2:23.

However, that may not be realistic as going faster in one corner might whack you up for the next--think turns 4 and 5 at VIR, for example--and so looking at bigger segments that each include related corners and straights (as Matt suggests earlier in this thread) would provide a more attainable best lap. So, I built another map with seven segments: for those familiar with VIR, (1) The front straight, from Start-Finish, down through Turns 1-2, up to the kink before Nascar, (2) Turn 3 and the short straight after, (3) Turns 4, 5, 5a up to the bridge, (4) The Climbing Esses and South Bend, down to the braking zone coming into Oak Tree, (5) Oak Tree and the back straight, (6) the Roller Coaster--Turns 14, 14a and 15, and (7) Hog Pen and the front straight down to start-Finish. (I'll send this map to Matt for TrailBrake)

Using this map, Randy's data yields a 2:26 theoretical best lap.

I was originally getting zeros in the theoretical best lap for all corners/segments in the Split Report. Then, using the Lap Manager view, I disabled all laps (right click the lap to do that) that weren't actual laps, or that were incomplete in/out laps. Leaving enabled only laps that were marked with "GPS Lap Time" made the theoretical best lap work.

Though this might be handy/fun to know about.
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      12-04-2011, 04:33 PM   #83
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Wow Frank,

You are quickly becoming an expert in this stuff. Thanks for the how to, I knew I had seen somewhere before but couldn't put my finger on it.
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      12-05-2011, 06:23 PM   #84
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EDIT: Improved formula at post #110

Got tired of so many squiggly lines, and of scanning the separate throttle position and brake pressure traces looking for coasting, so I wrote a simple math channel combining the two.

The single trace has throttle above the line, brakes below. Now easier to lay the pedal inputs alongside the speed or other channel traces, and coasting shows up as flat spots at zero.

The formula is as simple as “Z4M_PPS-Z4M_BRAKE_PR”; the Full Scale is set at 100 and the Zero Scale at -100, to range from 100% throttle to 100% (1 bar) brake pressure.

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After:

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Last edited by MFGJR; 12-19-2011 at 06:23 AM.. Reason: update
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      12-06-2011, 03:02 AM   #85
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Frank seems your really getting the hang of things and creating math channels...pretty awesome.

OnE thing I came across about establishing accurate lap predictions is to be smart in location and number of track segments and Avoid placing a segment in any braking zones.
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      12-06-2011, 10:12 PM   #86
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So I got the new "OEM" rotors and PFC06 pads installed on all four corners. Bedded in the new rotors and pads, pads squeal like a stuck pig, do you guys get that as well? Decided to give the Solo gear calibration another try and bingo. I guess when I tried before I wasn't getting into sixth gear long enough so I guess third time was the charm. Hopefully all set for the 18th for some open lapping on full course. Hopefully the weather will cooperate. Since it's open lapping will even be able to give the GF some rides along on some hot laps.
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      12-06-2011, 10:58 PM   #87
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Yes the pad squeal like pigs, but the bite is awesome and they are real easy to modulate once you learn what your working with.

Glad the gear calibration worked out for you.
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      12-07-2011, 10:15 PM   #88
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sabbanick View Post

OnE thing I came across about establishing accurate lap predictions is to be smart in location and number of track segments and Avoid placing a segment in any braking zones.
Hmmm... I'd like to understand this. Is the Solo's predictive lap timing feature based on segment splits? I thought it was a constant thing, at any position on the track. But, i haven't thought much about this part as it's not allowed at events I run.
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