gti5notrkt wrote:I went up to the scoring tower on Sat AM around 9.30am to find out the status of live timing/scoring. The official freaked out that I had a HP Laptop in my hand at the time. The story I was told was that an integrated wi-fi card in an HP laptop corrupted the AMB scoring system (pc?) due to IP addressing conflicts the night before and that they were still trying to correct the situation as of Sat, hence the live timing attempt was aborted. It was suggested that there would be future attempts but not using 2.4g wi-fi.
Any more details to this story? Doesn't the AMB system have a video/RGB out? Why not just feed the scoring video feed to a low power tv transmitter and be done with all the computer hardware?. Very easy for people to set up a cheap LCD TV/monitor to view, plus the track could do the same in the tech shed/Lemons HQ.
My 0.02c.
Jon.
Ok, here's the story on what happened with NL wireless T&S. Roland and his wife were very accomodating and helpful, couldn't have asked for better folks to work with. Big big thanks to them for accomodating our efforts.
We were able to get a Lenovo laptop hooked up directly (via hardwire Cat5 network connection) to their T&S equipment during Friday night practice. Their T&S system was upstairs and we were in the room downstairs. Our laptop was able to see the live T&S data that was being produced during night lighting/practice and we don't think that it caused any problem with the T&S. Unfortunately, we couldn't leave that laptop for use by the entire Lemons community, as it was one of my teammates' work computer.
We then tried to configure a WiFi router to receive and rebroadcast the data directly, but when we did that, something about the setup worked against the AMB system and we had to shut it down pronto. The promise that I made to Roland (and everyone else) was that the instant our efforts became a problem in any way, we would immediately cease and desist. After all, the race is the priority; getting wireless T&S working is way less important than getting the race run properly. I think this is the IP addressing conflict that you're referencing.
We think that we've worked out how to prevent this problem in the future. What we think we need (and I'd love to hear from a network engineer on this) is a dedicated laptop that will be wired directly to the main T&S computer. That dedicated laptop can run the MyLapsMonitor software and can serve as a wireless bridge to a wireless router. The wireless router will then rebroadcast the T&S data (and only the T&S data) on a non-conflicting IP address so that we can prevent any backflow to the main T&S scoring laptop.
The problem right now is that we either need some dedicated equipment for this, or equipment that is so valueless that if it is broken or stolen, the owner won't care. The same thing is true of a large LCD that could show the live data to all teams in the paddock: either the tracks or Lemons needs to invest in one of these for each race, or we racers need to provide one. It is entirely possible to show that data using the existing AMB equipment at most tracks (and certainly so at NL) but I don't personally have a large LCD and laptop to donate to the cause and the ability to safely transport said LCD to and from each track. If you have a cheap LCD TV/monitor to donate to the cause and/or a laptop, I can get a pretty good solution put together that could ship from track to track. Barring that, the laptop as wireless bridge and dedicated WiFi server is probably the best short-term solution.
The second problem with that is that Roland at NL T&S has gotten reports that for some reason, 2.4ghz wifi can cause interference with the AMB system; apparently this discussion was all the rage among the T&S folks assembled for the SCCA Runoffs a couple weeks ago. Nobody has any idea why it's causing a problem, but there are many anecdotal reports of it being a problem. The AMB software, while widespread, doesn't seem to get a lot of field testing before being deployed, or so I'm told, so it's not exactly bombproof.
(In regard to the HP laptop, I was informed that either they had someone at NL a couple months ago with an HP laptop near the T&S equipment (or were told by someone with AMB about this problem, my memory's lapsing right now) and something about how that laptop was configured caused all the T&S equipment to go on the fritz. So Roland was particularly sensitive to HP laptops. You couldn't know this before you showed up so don't beat yourself up about it)
Like I mentioned above, I'd love to talk with a network engineer because I think we're on the cusp of being able to solve this problem at all tracks if (and that's a big if) we can get around (or avoid) the 2.4GHz interference issue. Cheers.
Pat Mulry, TARP Racing #67
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