RJay

So its that time of year again, when an middle age man's thoughts turn to how to improve his lap times next season. I'm pretty much convinced on going with an AIM system, but I'm waffling between the MXL and the M3 XG Log. Wondering if anyone has an strong opinions as to one over the other. Anyone konw if the video and GPS options will ultimately be available for the M3? If so that would make the decision at lot easier. Also has anyone ever been successful at interfacing either of these units to an OBD I (not II) ECU?

911

I have a Mychron 3 for my kart and it's terrific. I don't think I've seen it used for a car, but I guess everything would work the same except for the rpms.

John Veninger

I use the AIM MyChron 3 XG in my track car. I love it!

Stuttgart

i'm curious about this too.

Matt Romanowski

We use the Mychron in the Continental and it's great. We even have 2 Porsches with it installed up here and it works terrific. The biggest thing is accuratly understanding everything.

Matt

911

Thanks for this post, Rjay...Believe it or not, this whole time I thought AIM only produced timers/data acquisition for karts. They are big in karting and nearly everyone has theirs or one from Alfano.

Anyway, I just went to their website (www.aimsports.com) and found out that they make these for cars & bikes - amazing! I'm going to write them to see if there's anything else I need to do to use my karting Mychron 3 for the car, as well.

penguinking

i know they're mainly for karts, but i don't see why it wouldn't work for a car.

but compared to a STACK or Motec system it sure is the best bang for the buck

ngoldrich

I have a M3 on my shifter & a MXL Pro in the car and really like them both. As several have already noted, I also think they are one of the best value/benefit bang for the buck - plus they look cool :-)

I have been emailing directly with the aimsports engineers in Italy, and they did tell me that they have a couple of CAN expansion boxes working and near completion. One is for additional analog channels, the other is a video overlay box to superimpose the daq info on the video stream.

Rjay:
It sounds like you may have heard of this also since you mention video. Do you have any more info. They did email me a sample early mpeg with the data. I would like toget this box and and that point a month or 2 ago were not sure when it was going to be available. Have you heard anything more ?

Hopefully we will see it at PRI in a couple of weeks...

Also, the engineers were very responsive when I found a firmware bug. They fixed it and emailed me an update. They then incorporated it into their next release...

Norm

RJay

Hi Norm:
Nope. I suspect you know more than I. I recall somewhere in my i-net travels reading that they intended to add this feature along with the GPS, but frankly I can't find the reference anymore. When I was at VIR last week there was a group of guys with MXLs and M3s. One of them was getting his supposed to get his GPS this week, so (and this is less interesting to me than the video) at least that seems to be real now.

I'd really like to know how you mounted the MXL in your car. Did you refab the gauge cluster or do something less invasive? I'm operating under the assumption that the MXL can not be mounted to the steering wheel.

ColorChange

Norm: I have heard the same thing. 996tt support, video and gps support, EXTREMELY SOON!

The M3 is a great unit in the car (I have had both). The Pista is what I have now and it can run all the new stuff. I would get the Pista unless cash is real tight.

I have mine mounted under the dash mushroom/instrument (temporary).

ngoldrich

Rjay,

My dash is carbon fiber wrap around style. It is on the lower roght hand side below the circuit breakers.

I believe you are correct you cannot mount it to the wheel since it has the accelerometer built in.

The same was true with the M3 Gold Auto unless you purchased the XG model which had the external acceleromtere - which is how the one for the karts work. I have not seen an XG for the MXL.

Question - for the MXL - what is the benefit of GPS if you already have accelerometer & wheel speed. Is it simply for further refining the accuracy of the mapping?

Norm

ColorChange

Norm, I hate to be a bother but can I get any data and video's of Putnam? I can send you my fed ex number or tell you how you can upload it to my server so I can download it. Whatever is easiest for you.

Thanks in advance.

ngoldrich

CC,

During the holiday (end of dec) I will go through my video. I am travelling too much from now through January. Also, I will check to see if I can export the data in any useful format since I am running a version of S/W that I patched for my special case-which means you cannot import it due to the hybrid/changed record format. If I cannot export it in usable, I am happy to provide screen captures of any type of graphs...

PS - I do still have the Fedex # (I believe) and it is no bother...

Norm

RJay

I heard that in addition to improved accuracy, it enables the ability to construct 3-D track maps, so you can see elevation changes in the maps as well. Not quite sure how the GPS makes this possible if the existing accelerometers are sitll positioned horizontally, so I'm a little supicious of this claim. Does GPS calculate elevation as well as lat/long?

Do you have a picture of your install you could post or send me? It might be helpful to see how you handled it.

ColorChange

They are using differential GPS to do this. Not only do you get elevation changes, the big thing is you can see your line! This allows you to compare segment times accurately (g-sum and line) to see which is fastest. An accelerometer is used for lat g, long g is calculated.