boothkc

Used this little guy at COTA for predicive lap times. Really simple box that does a good job showing times etc. I thought this installation idea may help. I'm 6'5" tall and used the upper holes in the stearing wheel to mount it. You have to drill and champfer new holes in the AIM mount as well as cut the lateral tabs off the mount, but works well and easy to see. The lateral tabs will hit the speed and alarm switches if not removed.

If your "normal" height then use the lower holes and don't have to modify the bracket other than drill new holes.

cheers,
Kevin

Cory M

Okay for lap timer only but won't work if you want to download the G loads. The accelerometers will be activated by you turning the wheel.

Matt Romanowski

If it's a regular solo and is calculating the G forces off the GPS, it should still work. I haven't tried it, but it's worth trying out. They mount them on motorcycle handlebars all the time.

ProCoach

That works!

Cory M

Interesting. I assumed the G loads came from the accelerometers like the other AIM products, not GPS. If they aren't using the sensors for G loads than why have them at all?

I called AIM for some clarification, the first guy I spoke to said he didn't recommend mounting on the steering wheel because "it would mess up the GPS". That didn't make a lot of sense to me to so I spoke to someone on the tech line who was very helpful.

He said that the accelerometers aren't in there anymore (contrary to the product info online). Apparently they had trouble keeping the accelerometer orientation in line with the Race Studio software because of all the different mounting options. The GPS is used for accelerations and track mapping. However they strongly recommend against mounting on the steering wheel because the GPS antenna is located on the top of the unit and turning the wheel can affect the satellite retention. If the wheel is turned and loses contact with the satellite it will essentially create a straight line between the points and "dramatically skew the laptimes and predictive capability". So it may work but depending on the track location and how your wheel is turned it could screw things up.

ir_fuel

My AIM Solo logs g-forces from the accelerometer.

wagongotya

those are great

boothkc

At COTA lap times were identical to Motec GPS times. Predictive lap times worked fine... I suspect even with a momentary loss of GPS is wheel is turned the laps are the same lap to lap (unless you spin). Thus a lap with the wheel turned and GPS filling it in is still the same time and prediction lap to lap... so works fine.

We use the Motec for segment data analysis and didn't even load the AIM software so no ideal if the track map is accurate etc. Just wanted predictive lap times which works great on the wheel.

KB

ProCoach

I have half a dozen clients who have them on the wheel in karts, Spec: Race Atom and others and their experience is the same as yours. Works fine and is perfectly accurate.

Accelerative loads are easily calculated by the change in velocity over travel along an axis or radius. It's a simple math calculation. As long as the sample rate is good and the smoothing is adequate, works well.

Racelogic (Video VBox) uses only this. So does the AiM MXL for braking and acceleration forces calculated from wheel speed. MXL Pista and Pro have LatG accelerometer ONLY... Always been that way.

The Solo may have accelerometers in it, but they're not enabled for those fifty-plus units I've sold since a firmware change several years ago. My Belgian friend is lucky!

Cory M

How can you tell if the accelerometers are being used? I bought two Solo's when they first came out in late 2011 so they should be the first generation, I haven't updated the firmware. I would think a direct measurement with an accelerometer would be more accurate than deriving accelerations from GPS.

Nice that it appears to work on the steering wheel. That's how I had the Mychron on my Kart mounted and it was convenient.

ProCoach

The GPS G calc is only limited by the sampling rate. Not a big deal.

Simple to see if the early Solo logs accelerometer data. Take a sample of data, download it, open RS2 and it'll be listed on the measures listing on the left side as acc laterale or accel longitudinale or accel_x_axis, accel_y_axis or something like that for actual measures. It'll be GPS_Lat_ G and GPS_Long_G for the synthetically calculated measures. The later firmware issues are ten times better than the early releases, adding more features and accuracy.

I have not seen a driver that could not improve their braking technique using a Solo or Solo DL.

HiWind

Booth can't you preload a lap into your ADL with splits etc..
and that should give you predictive on the DASH?

or is the SOLO just a better kind of predictive ie more frequent etc..?

Cory M

Thanks. Looks like my loads are coming from the accelerometer and not the GPS then.

I'll look into the firmware updates.

amso3

I'd plug into the SOLO and use "online" with RS 2 and see if the acceronmeters change as you rotate the unit, which will mean that it is accelerometer vs GPS. I believe the early SOLO used the accelerometers and later (maybe due to the firmware revision) they hid the real accelerometers and used GPS acceleration calcs. The SOLO DL definitely uses the accelerometers.

ProCoach

This has been my experience, too.