Just curious to see what anyone is using and how they've used the system to improve performance.

 

I'm using an AIM Evo3 (8 channel), but it's on a FSAE car.

Isn't the Mychron for karts?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by GSpeedR &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I'm using an AIM Evo3 (8 channel), but it's on a FSAE car.

Isn't the Mychron for karts?</TD></TR></TABLE>

The Mychron 3 can be used in karts and cars. Check out this site
http://www.aim-sportline.com/

 

On top of that, It is legal in Honda Challenge. Other systems like Competition Data, PI, ect. are not legal in Honda Challenge. The other benefit to the Mychron system is its price at only $695 retail you get track mapping, lap times, lateral and long g's, wheel speed sensor, and more. I know of a couple of Spec. Miata drivers that use this system, but I haven't talked with them about.

 

LOL, I'm always on that site, cuz I've had to download the wiring schematic .pdf since I wire it up wrong all the time.

What kind of sensors are you looking at right now?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by GSpeedR &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">LOL, I'm always on that site, cuz I've had to download the wiring schematic .pdf since I wire it up wrong all the time.

What kind of sensors are you looking at right now? </TD></TR></TABLE>

I am going to set up the system to handle just the sensors that I've mentioned and possible a temp. sensor or two. for water and oil. My friend works for a Grand Am Porsche team and they use the Competition Data system. After talking with him about their setup, I realize that the Mychron handles about 75% of what they're doing. What about your setup, what are you using the 8 channels for?

 

We use the Mychron in our Race cars.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by PeteVXR &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">We use the Mychron in our Race cars.</TD></TR></TABLE>

How do you like the system? Is it reliable? What info do you monitor, and has this system helped?

 

I use the Mychron 3 Plus on my kart. Can't complain so far, except it goes through a lot of batteries.

AJ

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Johnny Mac &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I am going to set up the system to handle just the sensors that I've mentioned and possible a temp. sensor or two. for water and oil. My friend works for a Grand Am Porsche team and they use the Competition Data system. After talking with him about their setup, I realize that the Mychron handles about 75% of what they're doing. What about your setup, what are you using the 8 channels for?</TD></TR></TABLE>

We use a Motec stand-alone engine management, which has a lot of its own sensors, inclusing 4 wheel speed sensors for the Motec traction control mux. The AIM uses the rpm, water temp thermocouple, and front wheel speed sensors from the Motec system. It has 4 digital channels: rpm, 2 speeds, lap beacon, and an output to the dash display. The 8 analog channels we use are: 4 linear potentiometers (each corner), steering pot., water temp, throttle position, and (coming soon) brake position. This also has long/lat accelerometers, and some other cool stuff.

I would like to step up to the 13 channel EVO3, and add IR temp sensors (3 per front tire) for realtime tire temps, but this is a pretty formidable task. Looking at the graphs has allowed to analytically evaluate drivers (myself included) as well as better tune the chassis (shock damping, balance, etc.). The dash display is less useful than one would think, mostly because you never have time to look at it. Don't waste your money on data acquisition if you aren't going to study your graphs or take data part time.


Chris - University of Michigan FSAE Data Acquisition Group Leader

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by GSpeedR &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

We use a Motec stand-alone engine management, which has a lot of its own sensors, inclusing 4 wheel speed sensors for the Motec traction control mux. The AIM uses the rpm, water temp thermocouple, and front wheel speed sensors from the Motec system. It has 4 digital channels: rpm, 2 speeds, lap beacon, and an output to the dash display. The 8 analog channels we use are: 4 linear potentiometers (each corner), steering pot., water temp, throttle position, and (coming soon) brake position. This also has long/lat accelerometers, and some other cool stuff.

I would like to step up to the 13 channel EVO3, and add IR temp sensors (3 per front tire) for realtime tire temps, but this is a pretty formidable task. Looking at the graphs has allowed to analytically evaluate drivers (myself included) as well as better tune the chassis (shock damping, balance, etc.). The dash display is less useful than one would think, mostly because you never have time to look at it. Don't waste your money on data acquisition if you aren't going to study your graphs or take data part time.


Chris - University of Michigan FSAE Data Acquisition Group Leader</TD></TR></TABLE>


Believe me, I wouldn't waste money on something I wasn't going to use. I actually have a lot of data acquisition experience fatigue testing helicopter parts and running a wind tunnel at my lab at UCLA. Thus, I know the value of DA, its just I was curious if anyone has benefitted from the Mychron system. We use a couple of 32 channel Dataq systems for monitoring strain gages applied to different parts of the helicopter (rotors, rotating and non-rotating controls, ect.)

 

I was just offering that out, since some systems (with all the sensors, laptop, etc.) can be really expensive. The Evo3 and Mychron are pretty similar setups. Does the Mychron use Race Studio?

 

I was considering picking up a Mychron 3+
It seems to be the sweet spot for price/performance,
but Im not sure how to rig it for a car...?

Pete which one are you guys using?


Modified by elgorey at 12:46 AM 8/5/2004

 

Johnny Mac,

I'm picking one up too

 

Cool, so we can share notes at the track. That should be pretty enlightening.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Andrie &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Johnny Mac,

I'm picking one up too </TD></TR></TABLE>

Which model are you getting? The Basic, Plus, or Gold pretty much span the Mychron 3 range.

 

I use a Race Technology DL-90 data logger. It has 2 built-in accelerometers and a GPS antenna to track position vs. time and thus velocity (vector). It plots track map from GPS data combined with accelerometer data. It has two external analog inputs, one to be used for throttle position and the other for steering position in my case. It has a digital input for RPM and one for wheel rotation.

I am planning to add some cheap (i.e. temporary) linear potentiometers to all four coil-overs and monitor 2 at a time to look at travel and damping effects. I was also thinking of adding a DataQ mini logger and connect it to 3 IR sensors per wheel on a bar to get real-time tire surface temps, and see what can be learned from that. I would prefer more channels, as in the newer unit from Race Technology, but I can live with the ones I have for now. looking at the data even as it is takes a lot of time. If I had more money, I would get a Motec unit, as the software is better.

I use the system mostly to get 1. lap-times, 2. sector times (using software cursors on the GPS track map), 3. speed, 4. lateral g's, 5. longitudinal g's and software derived brake flag, 6. total g's, 7 friction circle. I get the most insight from charts plotting 2 or 3 parameters together vs. time or distance, and comparing fast laps to each other. I use it mostly for driver development (my own), and it always shows me where I could improve by showing that on one lap I was faster here and then faster there on another lap, or not using the tires to their fullest on those fast sweepers. Even though two fast laps might be within a few tenths of each other, it is surprising that on one of them you were faster in this turn by braking later/less and then faster in another turn by exiting at higher speed. You could never tell that stuff using a video camera of just gut feel. Comparing sector times is also very interesting, as it shows you what was the best way to get around one part of the track. The "soft" sector markers allow you to hone in on any particular part of the track, such as a single corner, and you can compare the effects of trying different lines. I have found it useful to see where it is better to shift in those parts of a track where you might not shift because it seems like a waste of time, or you shift before entering a corner because you don't want to shift a full tilt in the corner, such as up the esses at Watkins Glen. I was just here last week and it showed me that it was faster to keep it in 4th gear at the end of the long straight before the bus stop, rather than shifting into 5th for the last part of the straight. It is also very easy to see if you have proper gearing for a track, although you always now that from just driving the thing. It just takes a lot of time to look at the data when you are your own DAG, driver, mechanic, pit crew and fund raiser!

Now if I only had more channels to look at and a bigger laptop screen to display it on.

 

With this system, do you download each session to your laptop for viewing? What did this system cost?

 

We use the michron 3 plus auto. I love mine it works great. Easy to install as well,
im me with any questions.

 

Quite a few of the Spec Miata guys have MyChrons in their cars, including me. I have to admit that I have not spent the time to learn how to take full advantage of all the data logging capabilities yet, but it's a pretty good value even if only used for the lap timer, programmable shift light and oil pressure/temp, water temp gauges. Becaue a lot of drivers have the same system, it makes it easier to compare information and help each other trouble-shoot any install issues.

 

Are you the same Johnny Mac that's on that Tuner Transformation show?

AJ

 

No, I haven't worked on any shows yet. I have, however, transformed some perfectly good tuner car parts into junk. Does that count?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Johnny Mac &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">No, I haven't worked on any shows yet. I have, however, transformed some perfectly good tuner car parts into junk. Does that count?</TD></TR></TABLE>


Yeah I know what you mean... Turn5 WS. Is the corn done yet?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Johnny Mac &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">With this system, do you download each session to your laptop for viewing? What did this system cost?</TD></TR></TABLE>

I paid $650 for my DL-90 a couple of years ago, but I think that was a sale price. System will hold 80 minutes of data so it is not usually necessary to download after every session. I sometimes do, and sometimes don't, depending on how "interesting" the last run was. I log virtually all my laps though. I only study the good ones, and glance at the average lap times to see average progress.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by ITAIntegraLS &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">


Yeah I know what you mean... Turn5 WS. Is the corn done yet? </TD></TR></TABLE>


No, I like my corn aged to perfection. The crop isn't ready yet, but when it is I invite you over to enjoy a cobb or two.