Building!
We pause this RaceCapture/Pro assembly weekend : (beer) food one hand, blogging in the other, to let you know how things are going at the ‘lab!
We’re finishing up the current batch of 64 units- we will be shipping these out during the upcoming week. 53 are allocated to the ‘Data Addict‘ perk level, and the remaining 11 are slated for the first set of backers in the ‘I can Haz Realtime data’ perk. Our next batch of RaceCapture/Pro circuit boards are on order, and we will start building that batch in about 10 days.
For those that signed up for the real-time telemetry perk we will be sending you emails with early shipment as they become available, in the original order the perks were backed.
Production telemetry modules and Bluetooth modules are being built in the next couple of weeks as well. This week we’ll be testing the final design while we finish collecting miscellaneous inventory like an appropriate 900/1800MHz GSM antenna, cabling and so on. We’ll be sure to share progress on that as it happens!
In case you missed it on our Facebook post, here’s a picture of the first tested bluetooth module! It’s super tiny and sized to fit a super small plastic enclosure with handy mounting ears, as seen in our previous blog entry.
Testing?
Testing! So how the hell do we test RaceCapture/Pro ? There are over 100 individual tests: testing analog inputs, digital inputs & outputs, analog and pulse outputs, GPS, SD Card… and much more. For the first 25 units the testing was done in a semi-automatic way, using the on-board Lua scripting language to report the state of the inputs while they get externally simulated by a human. This is super time consuming in addition to being rather soul-crushing. Enter the automated tester!
What you see is a RaceCapture/Pro circuit board perched on top of a bed-of-nails tester. This tester will automatically flash the bootloader / firmware and then run RaceCapture/Pro through a battery of automated tests while the operator stands by in a very relaxed posture after hitting the start button. The results of the test will be detailed on the computer’s console, and the overall results indicated by a green “WIN” or Red “FAIL” LED. WIN!
Excellent stuff, Brent and Team !! I WILL get around to buying one of these : Not that I need it for proper race capture, I’d just LIKE one to play with 🙂
However, I’ve had a thought for your next project :- How about designing and building an affordable Tracker for motor vehicles ? There are a few around this part of the world which utilise pay-as-you-go mobile/cell phone sims which are good value. The professional pay-by-subscription are expensive to buy, install and keep monitored. I’m convinced you can design something that would fit the bill and be both affordable and reliable. Another Indiegogo project ?