ProCoach

And that's what I meant when I said the OP's budget was a good start. Buy the SDL (and a cheap camera and RR3, if you want) to start, then add the SC HD later.

Glad you're enjoying it, Bill! Congrats on your improvements, too!

DCP

Thank you, Peter. I will look at that.

ProCoach

THIS is a deal!

pmason

I have the older TraqMate in the 968, very simple to use, have the Chasecam with it too. The Miata I put in a AIM MXL2 and have a GoPro 4 a lot more capabilities. But the TraqMate can do quite a bit.

Matt Romanowski

Have any of you guys had trouble with Traqmate not being able to overlay laps? I know a lot of Miata guys have had that problem.

TXE36

Completely agree about the issues with having to do post processing. Difficult to do at an already busy track weekend if one is instructing. This will be the likely factor that encourages an upgrade once funds are available.

The only thing I don't like about old cars like the BMW E36 is the OBD connector is useless for data (as I suspect for the OP's Spec Miata).

The same tech that is driving the amateur drones it at work here and it is really cool. GPS, accelerators, gyros , high def video, and overlay is getting really cheap. I can't image mounting a VHS camcorder to the roll bar in a race car - talk about the stone age.

-Mike

ProCoach

Well, first off, the company was founded and is headed by a "Miata guy," Glenn Stephens, back in 2004.

Although I've sold as many AiM systems in the last three years as I have sold Traqmate in the last ten, they're still very good at what they do. The video tbl is not available with ANY other system and their electromechanical accelerometers are better than MoTeC, AiM and blow away R-K and a few others, so much so they can "see" small variations in brake pressure as a function of deceleration. It's a good, basic system.

The lap overlay defect can come from bad antennas or not inputting the correct start/finish, the former easily rectified and the latter easily done after the fact. I have heard few complaints about that issue...

Matt Romanowski

I wasn't saying it was a good system, just asking if people had a problem that has been reported quiet at bit. It's a software issue that is not easily fixed according to them. Their post on another forum:

ProCoach

That's a pretty old post, and again, I haven't heard of that from the 350+ systems that I've sold. I still use it occasionally myself and have not had that issue. If it were happening "quite a bit," I would have heard about this.

The big bug I have seen is that if "combined cursor" is selected under "options" (this snaps the two different cursors on a lap comparison to the lead, or first loaded, lap together for instantaneous comparison at the same point on the circuit), the speed values sometimes get wonky around selected vMins. Solution is to deselect that option.

Matt Romanowski

That was from Andre at Traqmate, so I'm guessing the info is correct. They were expecting to get it solved by the end of this year. No idea if it's been done or not as I'm not a TM user. I was just asking if anyone here had had that problem.

ProCoach

Andre (Traqmate's Josh!) wrote it, so it's his experience. I'm in the field and I have not seen or heard of chronic issues other than video triggering, or not...

Part of the issue is that the brilliant fellow that wrote the initial program was poached for other things some time ago, and Glenn and Andre have been massaging the code to integrate new cameras and new features more recently. I think some of these improvements have broken some older functionality (when the program was much simpler), but the backdating of firmware and Traqview to 3.0 does fix it (I use the latest on all the stuff I use and sell) if there are problems.

It's easy to pick up the phone and call them, too.

surlynkid

[QUOTE=ProCoach;12772981]
If there's a problem, then your friend needs to get his AiM dealer (even if it was me) or AiM to fix it. I have NEVER heard AiM blow off people looking for a legitimate resolution to a problem. That's his issue, not the equipment.
QUOTE]

No - the issue is the equipment. And yes - AIM does blow people off. My SCHD has the same crappy audio as everyone else that complains and bitches and posts video. All the crackling noises and everything else muffled. I shipped mine back, and they said there were no problems with it even though they had my video showing that it clearly has terrible audio problems. They blamed it on their algorithm but basically said I was SOL. Then a couple of months later they issued a firmware update that was supposed to fix it. I did that update, and it still sounds just as crappy. Total letdown and waste of $1000. The SCHD2 fixes everything, but AIM would not upgrade me.

ProCoach

I'm sorry to hear that. Where did you buy the Rev1?

surlynkid

I got it from Apex, and Linda helped me get it back to AIM to check it out, but they said it was fine. If you watch my videos it is clearly FUBAR. The problem with Rev 1 is that you cannot hook up external mic. The Rev 2 allows the remote mic if you choose that cable.

Here is a video from our car from last year when a similar AIM thread was started.


And here are two more videos from that same thread with the same bad audio. AIM just stuffed their heads in the sand on this and should have upgraded every one of these to SCHD Rev 2.

TXE36

Clearly unacceptable for a system that costs that much. The engineer in me really cringes at it - the HD video with data overlay is the hard part, the sound should be a cakewalk. A big thing that can fix this is an external microphone, but it is very hard to find a compact camera with one of these.

-Mike