Thank you Santa.

Thank you Santa.

Thank you Santa.

Here at FIS World Cup in Lake Louise, we've been testing a new TAG Heuer timer prototype, the TAG Heuer HL540.

Since laptops are no longer made with serial ports, serial comms have become a dead end, and USB has proven a poor solution for mission-critical timing applications.

After unsuccessfully and repeatedly beating various timing equipment manufacturers over the head for over a decade to add a TCP/IP interface, I was somewhat stunned to find out that TAG Heuer has finally responded with the HL540.

A tip of my hat and a big thumbs-up to Jean Campiche and the design team at TAG Heuer. This prototype will be in production shortly.

Photos and details here:

http://www.precisiontiming.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ub...llery&Number=2#Post2

Commercial releases of the various flavors of Skunkware already support timer comms via TCP/IP, so full support for the HL540 will precede the product's release to the public.

Even if I still use a couple of laptops with serial ports the new CP 540 with TCP/IP interface is welcome. We received our CP 540 timer a week ago and it feels great. The software we use in Sweden (SSF Timing) does not support the new interface yet but the latest from Vola does so we can use Ski Pro if we want to. I have never liked to use USB adapters for timing as they feels to unreliable.

As an FYI, the newest version of SST software support the 540 an TCP/IP.
Jenna

The latest version of SSF Timing (2007 update 2)used in Sweden supports the CP540, used it this weekend. It works with laptop, HL960 display together with 2 USB / COM interfaces.

I will be using the 540 over Ethernet for my first race tomorrow. Set-up was easy once I dealt with an IP conflict. With SST if you are set to LAN but don't have a timer connected, you will get a cascading error message from a network timeout.

For more images and a few more comments, visit:
http://timingguys.com/eve/forums?a=albumtopic&TOPIC_OID...1033832&f=6396068411
Jenna

It appears that the Tag CP540 timer is not yet FIS-homologated. Anyone know how long it might take?

I was told it had passed all of the tests a few weeks ago, and the number should be forthcoming soon.
Jenna