Hey just wanted to share my new on hill connection station that I'm working on.
Previously we have been using marine/army plugs for our permanent on hill connections. This would usually be mounted to a tree off course. In the morning the race crew would then bring up a pole with female banana plugs mounted to a junction box, and a long coil of wire ending in a marine plug connection. This is so the banana plugs would not be subjected to any harsh winter conditions and could be easily refurbished/tested inside the timing building.
I'm trying a new system that completely eliminates this step by protecting the banana plug connections inside a second junction box with a hinged door (mounted to a breakaway pole for safety in the rare event a skier goes off course and impacts the station).
Paired with this is a custom made wire bundle that consists of two timing wires and a communication wire running inside of a mesh wire organizer. This bundle is supported by a wire mesh strain relief that gets clipped on to the junction box to eliminate any strain on the plugs themselves.
These wire bundles are cut to around 5-10 feet longer than the distance from the connection station to the expected location of the start blocks to keep clutter to a minimum on the start ramp. For example our "coyote" start is usually about 20ft away from where the station goes, and the cable I built is around 28ft long (I plan on building a duplicate spare, but for now I will just include extra standalone wires in the timing bag that goes up for a race).
I could have put those large bolts right through both junction boxes, but I decided to not cut any holes into the main box except for the one needed for the cable gland.
The only thing I don't like so much is how those screws protrude into the case. I COULD cut them off, but I'm considering spray foaming the cavity anyways. Im just hesitant to do this as it would make any disassembly very difficult so I'm holding off on that for now. I may just silicone the cable hole once its installed on hill.
Anyways just wanted to share my project in case anyone wants to use the same system.
