Synopsis - In Part 8, I cover the finished hand and foot sensors to the speed climbing timing system. Way back in Part 1 and Part 4 of this series, we covered the IR sensors and touch pad design and construction....the “bones” of what you see here. This article includes a system block diagram and photos and explanations of the final design of the hand and foot sensors.

These sensors are “finished” in that they are more done than some of the other parts of the system, and finished enough that this is what we’ll install in the rock climbing gym for our first major tests.

Diagrams and images below the break...read on... Read More...

Synopsis - This article covers the speed climbing timing display. In the architecture of the timing system, the display is the base station and holds the microcontroller (ATMega128) and sensor board presented in Part 6. The microcontroller drives the LED display, manages the real-time clock, and responds to the touch sensors described in Part 4.

All sensor cables and the starter’s console will connect to the base station through CAT5 cable.

Dale Herbert and I got together one weekend and finished off the two hand sensors, two foot sensors and did an initial fit of the LED display in the enclosure that Dale built. Here are some photos that show these components.

This is Dale working on the hand and foot sensors in the living room of my house. You can see the upside down display enclosure on the far right of the picture. More on that in a minute.



More below the break.... Read More...