Adding D-Line boards

Donating displays is very nice. What club are you working with?

You need 2 discrete serial ports to make this work. One for REI 2 input and one for Display output. Signal only needs to be sent to the first display. The jumper you mention should carry it to the second.

The RED/YELLOW display is programmed to be on Address 2. The BLUE/GREEN display on Address 4.

The selection of Dual ALGE in setup and test will send the appropriate data to the displays.

Send us an email and we will send you the complete manual addendum for Dlines and Split Second.

www.phoenix-sports.com

I'm working with the Springfield Ski Club. Will the input from the laptop to the boards be via the yellow and black banana jacks (C16)?? Might this be cable #105-10 in the Alge cable guide?

I plan on building the two cables they will need, any idea where I can purchase a couple of the amphenol plugs?? Thinking I'll need one for the D-Line board programming cable. Or can this also be achieved via the banana jack connections?

Thanks for the confirmation that I need to add a second usb-to-serial adapter to feed the boards. The laptop only has two USB ports which are populated: one for the REI2 and the other is a 4-port USB hub, which is also full. I scanned the other forums here and learned that USB/Serial adapter choice can be tricky. Any experience or feedback with either of these?

Startech -- ICUSB2322X-Professional-2-Port-USB-to-RS-232-Serial-Adapter

Startech -- ICUSB232HUB2-2-Port-USB-to-RS232-Adapter-2-Port-USB-Hub

Thanks for you assistance

Oh yeah... Feel free to share some of that snow!!!
We're lucky if this storm gives us 3"

It has been nice to get a real snow storm for a change. Full 16 inches at our workshop. More up at Bear Creek.

Looks like either of these units will work fine. Just make sure that they install at Com 9 or lower so the software can recognize them. Check and make sure that the software that installs them is compatible with the Windows OS you are using. XP still works the best for most timing apps.

These are serial number # 0712022 and # 0702046 if I am not mistaken.

#0712022 was set up to use with a Self Timer and might need to be reprogrammed.

phoenixspt at aol dot com

Hi,

Made progress on this project. Made a programming cable, and a cable to feed the times to both boards during racing. Set-up the split second software to feed two boards, and successfully have the two boards receiving the red and blue times.

Cannot seem to get them to display the same format.

Board 1 displays H:MM:SS.s
Board 2 displays _M:SS.s_

Ideally they'd like both boards to display: MM:SS.ss

I have the d-line configurator software and have successfully made some changes to each board (time/temp formatting) but am unable to tweak the timing display format.

Any insight is appreciated

Each board should have the same settings except for address.

Br 19 1= fading 9 = brightest setting 1-9
SE h2 h = 100ths (h) 2 = 2400 baud
t0 00 t = time to revert to "time of day" shown as upside down f 0 0 equals NO tod
AD 02 for the RED/ Yellow = Address two
AD 04 for the BLUE/ Green = Address four

Just use the black button on the side of the displays to get into programming.

1)Press and hold button to enter programming
2)Press when the far left digits flashing to move to the next setting
3) Exit and save once the AD setting is done by pressing the button until the board goes blank.


Split Second selected as Dual Alge 2400 baud in Setup and test

Am confident they are both already set as you have described except for "t0 00" on board #1. Right now it goes back to date/time shortly after race stops. No biggie right now.
YES! SE h2 have "set" it many times... but it is not having an effect on display format of board #2 (see desc in previous post). Should also be noted that board #1 is not displaying hundreths place in the final time either.

Can you provide any list of "other" suggestions? I ask this as they have not restored the Internet in the race shack yet. As I'm sure you know, research away from the equipment is a pain. I have all the doc's onsite, but I find a blend of forums is always helpful.

Appreciate you time

Update for those following this thread. With some live tech support over the weekend, it was determined there was a hardware issue with board 2. This was why only the middle 4 digits were working.
Phoenix staff authorized a field repair by the customer**, and we were able to restore the functionality of all 6 digits.

** To avoid violating any warranty on your equipment, never attempt repair without prior authorization from company reps.

As for tweaking the display format of both boards (to display 100ths of a second): This could only be successfully achieved by using the (basic) programming button. See the directions posted on this thread on 12-14-10 by "FKP".
It should be noted that one board (firmware 3.7) has only four values (Br, SE, t0, AD) that can be modified using this method. The other board (firmware 3.9) had the 4 noted above, with an additional 10-12 values available to modify if needed. FYI… The D-Line timing boards' firmware version is displayed when the board is first powered on.

Using the D-Line configurator software from ALGE to reconfigure the boards is clearly useful for some aspects of programming certain board features. However, as these two 6-digit D-Line boards were put in to service, it was learned that the software does have some bugs that prevented certain key options from be set. Thankfully, the programming button on the board itself allowed the settings to be changed.

One final thought… On one D-Line board (red course), the "t0" value was set to '99'. Any time the red course is actively used, the board shows the active racers time. If the red course goes inactive for more than 99 seconds, the board reverts to date/time/temp display. However, once the red course is actively used again, the display automatically returns to showing the racers time. This is convenient, as it does not require anyone to change the boards programming before and after racing. Date/time/temp is automatically displayed when no racing is taking place.

Thanks to FKP for all your help getting these boards online.