# Trakmate isn't Working Anymore



## Peacefield (Jan 22, 2008)

Peacefield Raceway has been suffering from neglect. A combination of a busy summer plus we had a chipmunk in the basement for a time and, well, he sort of had his way with some of the scenery. 

With the return of cold weather and the Parsippany slot car show for inspiration, I decided it was time to get it going again. After much Railzipping and hot-gluing, the track is starting to look and perform like it should.

That is, all except for my Trackmate lapcounter. The software opens, the electronics for the laptimer power up, but it doesn't see the cars as it passes over the eyes. I have them coming up through the track and there are LED's (provided by Trakmate) in a pedestrian overpass directly above like this:










Everything worked fine last time I ran the track. The wires weren't chewed on or anything like that. The overpass hasn't moved so I have to believe the LED's are still lined up with the eyes. So what could it be?

It is dusty down here; maybe some dust has gotten down into the eyes, but I have brushed and blown them (haven't tried removing them, though). Maybe the LED's are dead? But they're supposed to last a very long time, no?

Any thoughts? Thanks.


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## SwamperGene (Dec 1, 2003)

If you can flip the LED bar up, look at them with a digital camera (turned on of course), working IR LEDS will show up as bright white spots.


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## slotcarman12078 (Oct 3, 2008)

Here's a trick I learned quite by accident. IR LEDs can't be seen with the naked eye, but if you have a digital camera, you should be able to snap a picture of them. If they're working, they will glow pink or white in the picture. Dim the lights, aim the camera up under the bridge and shoot a couple pics. If you see light under the bridge, it's not the IR LEDs causing the issue. That would mean the sensors are the culprit.


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## fordcowboy (Dec 27, 1999)

Try cleaning the LEDs with a q-tip & alcohol. Go to the trouble shooting on the program and test the lights by putting your finger over the LED and the computer will show you what it's reading. If that doesn't work try calling Daniel at trackmate. He's always been very friendly & helpful.


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## SwamperGene (Dec 1, 2003)

If you use alcohol be sure it is watered down, 91% can burn the plastic :drunk:


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## Peacefield (Jan 22, 2008)

I got side tracked by the holidays, but THANKS everyone; I'll take a stab at these suggestions and post what I find.


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## RiderZ (Feb 19, 2007)

Thats a nice looking layout.Good Job!!!:thumbsup:


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## fsmra (Feb 28, 2005)

Check your trakmate software settings (assuming its the windows not dos version) the debounce setting has to be either 2 or 3 to work with I/R, start with 2 and then 3. If it is set to 0 or 1 you won't count laps.

While unlikely that the emitters or sensors have gone bad it is possible and it happens (rarely). Cleaning the track with aggressive solvents will damage the sensors (cloud the lenses) and render them useless.
The easy test for the emitters is to (1) find i/r test strips to see if there emitting OR (2) if you can't find those try using an extremely bright, say halogen light, over the sensors and see if it counts laps. Do not use fluorescent light as they will not work.

If it is the windows version make sure your power supply to the trakmate card is connected properly or working properly.

Hope this helps

Michael Block


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## AfxToo (Aug 29, 2003)

It's highly unlikely that all 4 emitters and all 4 detectors have gone bad. The MTBF for LED emitters is typically in tens of thousands of hours. Chances are that at least one lane would be counting, even with dirty emitters and/or sensors. Time to look for a common cause.

Some candidates:

1) The power supply for the IR emitters. The digital camera check will rule this in or out. If you do not have a camera that can detect IR then you should check the DC voltage coming out of the emitter power supply with a voltmeter. The TrackMate light bridge uses a 9 VDC wall wart style supply.

2) The sensor cable and sensor connections to the data acquisition board. Make sure the chipper didn't chew through this cable. If the track is subjected to humidity then it would be a good idea to unscrew the connector and clean the pins with an alcohol soaked q-tip. (Power down the board while doing this.) 

3) You said the data acquisition board was powering up so you can rule this out. I assume that since you've been running cars on the track that the power relay is working. Are you using a track power relay and is it working properly from TrackMate?

4) The serial cable and connection to the computer.

5) The serial port configuration. Did you change anything with the computer configuration at all since the last time you ran TrackMate? If you are using a serial-to-USB converter and added a new USB device to your computer, like a printer or remote display then the virtual COM port assignment can change. If you are using legacy RS232 serial port and if the track power relay is working OK from TrackMate you can rule this out.

6) Serial port configuration in Windows. Again, if you have not changed anything in Windows and the track power relay is being triggered correctly then you can pretty much rule this out.

7) Sensor configuration in TrackMate. If you have not changed anything in TrackMate, and you are running the same exact version of TrackMate as you were running prior to the seasonal shutdown, this should be OK. But if you upgraded to the latest version of the TrackMate software you may have some configuration settings to tweak.


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