Several Skunkware customers who license my SHOWJUMP32 showjumping software to run their Daktronics boards have been wrestling with the Farmtek Polaris timer recently. SHOWJUMP32 does support the Farmtek Polaris, although doing so was a difficult decision for me, because Farmtek timers and cells are substandard in several technical areas, making them inaccurate and thus unfair to the athletes. But they're cheap and nicely packaged, and thus have become
ubiquitous in equestrian sports in America.
Neither the FEI nor USA Equestrian has ANY rules nor homologation standards concerning the accuracy of time bases used for showjumping, thus the Farmtek Polaris is legal. Then again, a sundial and a cuckoo clock are legal as well under the FEI rules - or lack thereof. Since the Polaris is legal and ubiquitous, I made the
decision a few years ago to support it in my showjumping software.
In a perfect world, all showjumping events would use the ALGE S4, ALGE telesignals, and ALGE photocells, as the S4 is the only timer on the planet which both meets reasonable homologation standards and has all the features necessary to properly time a showjumping class, i.e. user-adjustable countdown, horn interface, RS-232 computer output, timeout (pause/resume), and so forth. The Farmtek meets all of the requirements except accuracy. It actually has some very nice features, but not being ACCURATE is a pretty glaring shortcoming. There a few other timers around (such as Longines) which meet some of what I would deem the necessary requirements, but no other time base other than the S4 meets all of them. The ALGE S4 is the only one I've seen that really does the job properly, fairly, and thoroughly.
Nonetheless, I recently updated SHOWJUMP32 with some new code to better support the Farmtek Polaris, however, the Polaris must be configured carefully in order to work properly with Skunkware SHOWJUMP32.
I take my hat off to professional timing contractors like Lloyd Longnecker of Ryegate, who could have taken the cheaper alternative and bought Farmtek (like most shows), but who spent the extra bucks to buy quality and ACCURATE hardware from ALGE.
The following is a description of how to configure a Polaris to work with Skunkware SHOWJUMP32, versions 32.12 and higher:
Setting the baud rate and format of the serial output:
*Power the Farmtek off.
*Turn it on
*SETUP key
*Hit PREV CHOICE until "Exit Setup" appears.
* With "Exit Setup" showing, hit EYES ON.
*Hit NEXT CHOICE until display shows PRINTER TYPE - then hit ENTER
*Hit NEXT CHOICE until display shows ASCII FLOAT or ASCII FLOAT HORN
*Hit ENTER
*Hit NEXT CHOICE until display shows 4800 baud
*Hit ENTER
Setting the countdown (a) to start automatically when the countdown expires, as per the 2002 FEI rule, and (b) format the countdown output correctly:
*Hit Setup
*Hit Next Choice until you get to "Rule Options"
*Enter
*Hit Next Choice until you get to "Start Timeout"
*Enter
*Display will read "Rider Must Start (secs)
*At this point, the entire keypad becomes a numeric keypad, with the numbers being shown in the lower left corner of each key. Enter 45 (or however many seconds the countdown is required to be)
*Enter - you will see "Done!"
*Hit Next Choice until you get to Timeout Format
*Enter
*Hit Next Choice until display reads Hours,Min,Sec
*Enter - you will see "Done!"
*Hit Next Choice until you get to "Start w/timeout"
*Enter - you will see "Done!"
*Hit Next Choice until display reads "Exit This Menu"
*Enter
*Hit Next Choice until display reads "Exit Setup"
*Enter
Originally posted 5 Jun 2002 by James Broder
james@skunkware.tv
Original Post