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My Traqmate data / video acquisition system

3K views 12 replies 6 participants last post by  LostPawn 
#1 · (Edited)
As I've gotten several questions on my setup that I use for my videos I wanted to start a thread with the details. If you also have a similar system please feel free to post yours, if we get a number of replies I'll setup a table of contents in the first post linking to each.

Data
I use the original Traqmate Traqdash system that includes the "brain" unit and the older in car monochrome LCD display. My base unit is mounted in my dash where the airbag used to be. You can put it pretty much anywhere that is flat and lets you face it in the right direction.

I also have the TraqData II which adds 2 additional analog and 2 digital inputs. I use these to log oil pressure, oil temp and RPMs. I installed a sender on my gPan 2 when I installed it and tap it for both pressure and temp. I also have a device that attaches to the green wire on the coil pack for cylinder #4 . While temp/pressure aren't really that important but getting the RPMs can really make the videos look great. Also helps from a learning standpoint to see where and how smoothly you're shifting.

Display
Traqmate has come out with a significantly upgraded display, that color TraqDash. Nice and pretty with integrated shift lights it gives you a ton of real time information. My old style one simpley displays current laptime and does predictive timing to let you know if you're slower or faster than your previous lap.This is both a blessing and a curse -- as many times if I see thatn I'm say .5 faster I'll push harder and wind up making a mistake. It's still a great learning tool that provides real time feedback while you're driving.

Analysis
Traqmate includes analysis software called Traqview. While it's a touch on the weak side it can be a great learning tool as you can not only compare your laps to previous laps or even better you can import and compare laps from your friends. This can be hugely helpful as you can see where you're faster and where you're slower than others. While they may be in a different car (or type of car) it still can be helpful to see where you're smooth and where you're not.

Video
This is the fun part and what all your friends want to see. It can also be a great learning tool for yourself as you can watch what your doing as the camera doesn't lie. In my "full" setup I run 4 cameras, they are:

Built in cockpit camera: For this I use a older ChaseCam that while it's SD is permanently mounted in my car on the rear glass between the seats. It's fairly wide angle so it gets most of the cabin and in my case it runs anytime the car is running.ounted next to the ODBII port shooting right at my feet.

The last 2 cameras are front and rear. The front camera is mounted in the main front intake area wit the mount stuck to the underside of the front main opening. The lower the camera the better the sense of speed comes across. Finally I mount my rear camera low near the exhaust tip for two reasons, one it's a great angle for rear view shots and second it generally does a great job recording the exhaust note of the car.​

Syncing the video
This is the hardest part of making the video. The way I do it is I export the data from Traqview to an XLS files and then import that into Race Render 2. I use RaceRender as it not only has tools to help you sync up the videos but it does a great job with virtual gauges by reading the data from the Traqmate. The hardest part is getting everything synced up - to help with this I honk the horn 3 times right before I go out. I can then use this as an audible marker to get things very close to synced then use the the tools in RaceRender to fine tune the sync.

Conclusion
After everything is synced up I generally only render out the fastest lap then after that I'll edit down just the overtakes mainly for fun. Being able to review what I've done in a session is hugely help as it's pretty rare I have an instructor in my car. In the first season of having the system I took 3.5 seconds off my best lap. Seeing what and where I'm going things is hugely helpful as my memory of a session is rarely true to what happened.

Questions? Tell us about your setup and what it does for you?

Sample Video


-Ross
 
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#2 ·
Ross, that's a pretty sweet setup.
I'm not as tech savvy as you, so I'll share my current setup.

I drilled 4 holes into the the front clam where the roundel use to be. The holes are set about 6 inches apart. I fabricated a mounting bracket out of balsa wood, because of it's lightweight properties.
To this custom bracket I've mounted a Kodak Brownie.
Camera Cameras & optics Camera accessory Point-and-shoot camera Camera lens

I've modified the Brownie to accept component wires, which I've snaked through the two existing holes from the previously removed roundel.
These wires are fed into the cabin.

I've also removed my airbag to make room for the colecovision, which collects all of the "real time" data that is sent from the Brownie.
Electronics Technology Electronic device Office equipment Videocassette recorder


The colecovision then exports the data to a flux capacitor that I have mounted between the driver and passenger seats on the rear bulkhead panel.
Here's what it looks like mounted cleanly between the seats.
Technology Games Electronic device Space


The data is then reprocessed in a labor intensive sequence, which I'd rather not discuss on this forum, because it's probably way above most members heads.
This data is then stored to be viewed later on a beta tape.

Minidisc Technology Electronic device Floppy disk Electronics


I've taken about 5 minutes off each lap with this particular setup. I'm confident if I added another Brownie to the rear of the car I could shave even more time per lap.

So, here's a couple of laps from my friends Mustang GT. We were just having fun, with I believe the last session of the day. He let me borrow his GoPro and I lent him my above mentioned setup. I think it came out pretty good considering he told me afterwards that the flux capacitor seemed to be acting up?
http://youtu.be/kVYRfUm1tTc

Chris
 
#3 ·
I drilled 4 holes into the the front clam where the roundel use to be. The holes are set about 6 inches apart. I fabricated a mounting bracket out of balsa wood, because of it's lightweight properties.
Are you sure the fasteners are of the correct grade? If you didn't have a real engineer check the work, your whole car might explode!

On a more serious note I'm just using a GoPro and Harry's Lap Timer with a goofy external GPS I hacked together and a cheap Bluetooth ELM327. I should be able to RaceRender the two together but I haven't tried yet. The Bluetooth readout of RPM and throttle position is pretty slow.

It should be possible to watch for the 0x400 messages that the ECU sends to the instrument cluster over CAN and get 10Hz RPM, speed, temperature, and shift light readouts that way. I don't think Harry's supports watching for / unpacking a specific CAN message, though, so it'd have to get even more bodged together.
 
#9 · (Edited)
I use RaceChrono with Device Pack(for OBDII), and Analysis pack(for predictive lap timing/time delta) on 5.7" screen Android phone, External Bluetooth 10Hz GPS(but at 5Hz dGPS mode), and cheapo Bluetooth ELM327 OBDII reader.

Fortunately, I lucked out on the ELM327 as I didn't get the slow one. It was a bit of a gamble.
External GPS is always a nice addition since most internal phone sensors only update at 1Hz.

There are few settings I like to mess with, namely slow channel and fast channel so I don't flood the CAN with too many data requests that results in poorer speed and dropped data.
For slow channels I logged Coolant and IAT, and for Fast channels RPM and TPS.

I then export to Dashware and line it up with a small handheld 1080p camera I bought in 2008. I got the GoPro 4 Black for 4K shooting last winter, though but haven't done a trackday yet.
I apparently like Dashware quite a bit. It was fairly intuitive to use, and making/modifying gauge was pretty straight forward.
Rendering is a bit bad, but I only use it to process raw data/video so it doesn't really matter. I either do more editing on Vegas Pro and re render or simply shrink it using Handbrake.

The result is completely serviceable.

The only mistake I made in the video is I forgot to link TPS data to the throttle bar graph between the gauges in Dashware for this video.

I wish to add steering angle and yaw rate data so I can show understeer/oversteer conditions, but that requires proprietary sensors and I haven't gotten around to make it all work.
 
#11 ·
Sometimes this site is just pure gold, damn I love you guys!!!!
 
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