If you have an AIM Smartycam you might be interested to know that firmware release 01.03.10 enables the separate capture of data vs. data overlay on the video. This means that if you have Race Studio 2.47.00 you can download data from the Smartycam and analyze it using all of the normal Race Studio functions.

This is NOT explained in any way in the release notes, but was rumored to be in development for at least the last year. I have both the Smartycam and the Solo unit ... data appears to be very similar.

Rich Kenny
#33 San Francisco Region

I've never seen a Smartycam in person, but they have both GPS and accelerometers, also a CAN bus connection (like the Solo DL). It sounds like the GPS might not be as accurate as a Solo, since they offer an external module.

One other thing we've discovered it the track maps in GPS Manager have been updated, so older versions of the track maps do not necessarily match up the new versions. So far, it only looks like they've move the S/F lines, which can be adjusted in Race Studio.

Actually, I believe that Smartycam could possibly be a bit more accurate because it has an external GPS antenna connector. Solo and Solo DL have an internal antenna only. I'll compare data later this week and let you know what I find.

Rich

The extra connector is for an (optional) external GPS module. I think it is the same one that we use on our MXL Pistas. But I could be wrong about that.
The Solo GPS is pretty darn accurate (it can tell which parking slot I park my truck in). My understanding is the SmartyCam's internal one is accurate enough to use for the video, but may not be for detailed analysis.
Also, we've been having problems with one of our external modules and found out there is a later version out...

Let me preface this by saying that I'm no expert on the AIM Race Studio software. However, I did load up two side-by-side runs recorded with both the Smartycam and the Solo unit. As far as I can tell, they're both using the same track map. These were from Sears Point this last weekend for the 2nd qualifying and the 2nd race.

Smartycam consistently reports lap times approximately .01 seconds lower than Solo. Since data hasn't yet been posted on My Laps I can't tell for certain which one is closer to reality, although I do know that the Solo was about .005 seconds high for the one data point I remember (the 1st qualifying). Also, the track map sets start/finish about 100 feet past actual start/finish.

Also, Race Studio reports on something call "GPSPosAccuracy" which I'm guessing is an internal estimate of accuracy. Solo is slightly more accurate in the runs I looked at, typically showing 1.2 vs 1.6. Is this feet, meters, miles, kilometers or light years? Damned if I know.

Short of doing a little further digging I'm inclined to use the data from the Smarty Cam and let Solo be my display to give me predictive laps and lap count.

Rich

Interesting, that was the same thing we were seeing with our dashes vs. the Solo. When I asked about it, I was told the s/f lines on the maps have been recently updated. And the Solo ones are supposed to be more accurate. For the dashes, at least, they said to refresh the maps with the ones from the latest GPS Manager.
The position accuracy is in light years (actually meters). Those are close to our numbers, IIRC, with the Solo being more accurate. The Solo also consistently acquires more satellites and works better indoors.

With the up-coming ECU (that Mike Davies was testing out on one of the CSR Performance cars this weekend), the CAN-bus connection to the Solo DL may make for a pretty inexpensive data acquisition system as well, though I can't attest at this point to the data collections that possible with the new ECU...

breton wrote:With the up-coming ECU (that Mike Davies was testing out on one of the CSR Performance cars this weekend), the CAN-bus connection to the Solo DL may make for a pretty inexpensive data acquisition system as well, though I can't attest at this point to the data collections that possible with the new ECU...

And the SmartyCam, too...