Yesterday, during the last day of otherwise trouble free ski race timing, we had a problem with our ALGE photo cells that I can't understand. The first run went fine. Not a single lost finish. Before the 2nd run we checked the cells and both sides were in black. Attempt to realign them was not going very well. It was really difficult to bring them back into green. The weather was more or less dry, and the distance was not more than 20m. Should be easy. Like I said, the first run and 2 days of timing before this one went completely fine.
After doing our best to realign, we did the standard 'arm waving' test at various locations and we got signal on the CP540 timer. However, once the race started, we got no finish signal generated by the passing skiers. I was standing by the cells while racers were going through the finish and I could see the needle moving a bit, but the timer was getting nothing. However, the waving arm did generate the signal seen by the timer. I swear I had a good sleep and I had no alcoholic beverages during the race that would explain my observation.
However, I keep thinking that I did some simple silly mistake with race/adjust settings or some kind of oversight, but this is so puzzling, I had to share it with you and ask if I'm missing something obvious.
Also, what now? Obviously we can't do 'dry' test of the cell as it responds to the wave test just fine. I guess we either have to set them up and ski through the beam or send them back to 'Precision Timing' for testing. Ideas, recommendations?
Cheers.
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