Creating VN1 file to use with dash

[br21]

Hi!
Soon I will have a race on temporary road circuit. I would like to prepare in advance to have track map loaded in my C125 dash for first tests, so it can show the lap times immediately incl. lap gain/loss.
Is there any way of creating such map in advance without having any data logged from that track previously?

[David Ferguson]

While you can't create the track map, you can create the Venue so you will be able to have GPS lap timing, and gain /loss (after you've completed the first lap!)

To create the venue, use File->Edit Details...., then click Manage Venues. Add the new venue, including the GPS coordinates of the start/finish. I find Google Earth an acceptable way to determine GPS coordinates.

Open your C125 Configuration and make sure that Calculations->Lap Gain/Loss... has the option checked for automatically update reference lap with any faster lap.

Send the configuration to the dash so the updated Venues will be availsable.

Make sure you've cleared/reset the Reference Lap Time.

[the_bluester]

Hi David, just to touch on this one. I assume from what you wrote that if you go to a venue for which you have no reference lap, provided you have the lap timing set up and have at least created a GPS beacon if it is not an existing track, so long as you have "Update reference lap" selected it will load your first full lap as the reference and update from there as you get faster?

Does the reference lap apply only to the track and dash, or does it depend on the car as well (If you have more than one vhehicle set up) I am finally getting my dash out on track this weekend and it is in a much slower car than my usual. It has been sitting on a shelf for two years, time to use the thing!

[David Ferguson]

Your assumption agrees with what I wrote, and what I believe will happen.

The reference lap stored in the dash only applies to that dash. You should reload or reset the reference lap if you change venues, or maybe if you move the dash to a different vehicle with significantly different performance.

Good luck at your race!

[the_bluester]

Tomorrow is the day so I will report back if the dash builds a reference lap on my first lap of the day then starts giving me gain/loss information on subsequent laps. If not then after my first run I will unload the log and build a reference lap in i2 to load to the dash.

I generally do circuit sprint and hillclimb events, this weekend is a sprint with the pointscore within our club being a modified regularity.

Regularity with your three fastest laps of the day scored means that anyone in the club has a chance, but to encourage you to push harder the regularity is based on four times, your three fastest and the fastest time of the day in your class. Regular but slow = poor points, regular and quick, good points, regular AND the class winner in the sprint, unbeatable! We are running on the airfield of an air force base.

[adrian]

Just to confirm exactly how this works; only a single reference lap is stored in the dash. It isn't specific to a particular venue or vehicle.

You have to make sure you clear the reference lap before you start your first run because if the last track you went to had a shorter lap time than the fastest lap you can do at the current track then it will never update and lap gain/loss won't work.

Obviously make sure update on fastest is selected in your configuration and your first full lap out (ie beacon to beacon) will become the new reference lap.

[the_bluester]

Thanks Adrian, I don't have a track map yet (It is not a venue in the system) but I used google maps to get a GPS coordinate for the S/F line. Tomorrow is a pretty casual day so I will be able to cruise around slowly to get inside and outside edge laps for a proper map.

Reference lap and "Fastest lap are two different creatures aren't they? Fastest lap being the fastest lap between session resets?

[adrian]

Yes they are different things although they could possibly be same value at times.

[the_bluester]

I am thinking they will be the same value a number of times over the weekend.

[the_bluester]

Well, that was an interesting weekend learning to use the dash. Somehow in the time since I bought the dash I had managed to load a reference lap from a friends car (He also has a C127) but his car is significantly faster.

I figured out in i2 how to generate a reference lap from a logged lap I did on Saturday and then how to send it to the dash. I ended up with an appropriate lap time displayed (I had the reference lap time on the warmup page of the default configs) however the gain/loss was not working and when I went faster it did not update. I ended up creating a condition to reset/clear the reference lap time within the dash and it all started working after that. The only thing I can think of is that the logging setup on Saturday did not include GPS lat/long and I changed the calculation method for lap distance on Saturday night, the reference lap I sent to the dash on Sunday morning would have had the distance calculated by a different input, could that stop the dash from calculating gain/loss and updating? Just hoping to avoid the same issue in future.