And RaceCapture/Pro Sales are Live!

If you were not one of the 131 IndieGogo contributors or the select few who have beta tested for us, you can now purchase your own RaceCapture/Pro here for $399.00. We’ve also opened sales of the Real Time telemetry module for $129.00 !

Why RaceCapture/Pro?

It’s plastered all over this website, but here’s a link to the page just in case. Why RealTime Telemetry? Because racecar. Or raceboat. Or race motorcycle. Or race truck. Or race something. Because you need the info, stat!

Thank you!

Thank you to each and every one of our campaign funders, beta testers, friends, family, friends of friends, race teams, and support crews. You helped us in many myriad ways get the power of open source data acquisition technology into the hands of people not afraid to tinker, program, or hack their cars. And the world of automotive data will never be the same.

What are ya waiting for?! Get one for yourself and get Data That Drives You!

Racing smarter, not harder,
The entire team at Autosport Labs

We are excited to announce that Autosport Labs is the “Official Data Acquisition and Telemetry Partner” for the new BMW CCA Endurance Racing Series!

Here is their Facebook post:

“We are pleased to announce Autosport Labs as the “Data Acquisition and Telemetry Partner” for our series! Autosport Labs will be providing discounted Race Capture Pro units to all our registered racers as well as gift certificates to be provided as contingency prizes. We look forward to partnering with them to provide innovative data and telemetry services to our racers.”

For our part in this partnership we will be awarding trophy gift certificates for the new racing series for the race team exhibiting Best Sportsmanship as well as offering 25% discount codes to registered entrants of the series for Autosport Labs products.

BMW CCA is breaking with a trend seen in other racing series: they are allowing real-time telemetry during competitions. We’re thrilled to partner up with BMW CCA to showcase their new series and showcase our new products in action with live telemetry, as well as the valuable feedback teams will get when reviewing their data post race.

The schedule for the season is May 24th at Mid-Ohio, August 23rd at New Jersey Motorsports Park, and tentatively scheduled is September 20th at Watkins Glen. Check out their website and Facebook page for more details and if you’re a BMW driver, we hope you can get a group of your driving pals and your car out for this fun new series!

http://www.bmwccaclubracing.com/events/enduro.aspx

www.facebook.com/BMWEnduranceSeries/info

We are building RaceCapture/Pro systems and the real-time cellular telemetry modules as I type!

Here’s where we are on the perk fulfillments:

- Data Junkie : fulfilled

- Data Addict : fulfilled

- I Can Haz Realtime Data Wave 1 - shipping target May 5

- I Can Haz Realtime Data Wave 2 – shipping target… Maaaybe May 5?

- Mobile App Dashboard + Bluetooth – delayed to end of May

- Shift light bonus perk – delayed to end of May

We are excited for the possibility to compress the 2nd wave of I Can Haz Realtime Data data into the first wave and ship everything more-or-less together. We will see how well the first batch of cellular telemetry modules go this weekend, after all of the unknowns and gotchas are teased out from the volume production process.

We apologize about the delays in the Mobile App + Bluetooth. However, there is a silver lining to this cloud! We have all inventory to produce the bluetooth modules – we just need to sequence the work, which will be scheduled soon after the cellular modules. There’s also the Android dashboard app: this needs additional work to create a base set of features that we can get in your hands in the near term, and then start iterating improvements. For those of you waiting, thank you for hanging in there.

For the shift light bonus perk: this has been on the back-burner and won’t be complete until the Bluetooth modules + Realtime data perks are fulfilled. All of the shift lights will likely be shipped separately from other perk levels.

Missed the Indiegogo Campaign? We have some love for you.

As you’ve noticed, we’re getting close to fulfilling all of the Indiegogo perks for RaceCapture/Pro, the Real-time Cellular modules and even Bluetooth modules.  True to the code-of-honor for crowdfunding campaigns, we have agreed not to separately sell RaceCapture/Pro, Telemetry modules and Bluetooth Modules until all of those respective perks have been fulfilled.

We’re getting close! First up for regular sales is RaceCapture/Pro. Following soon- the realtime cellular telemetry module. Finally, when all of the Bluetooth module perks have been fulfilled, we will make available the Bluetooth Module add-on + Android dash. We will be picking the target dates within a week. Stay tuned!

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.

Bluetooth module - it's so tiny!

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!

It's an automated test bed b/c lazy!

Fast tracking RaceCapture/Pro shipments

We’ve received feedback from the Telemetry Perk backers asking: “Can we at least get our RaceCapture/Pro units early, while we wait for our telemetry modules?”

The answer is Yes: for an extra shipping fee of $10 USD (domestic) / $40 (international) we will ship your RaceCapture/Pro unit in advance of your telemetry perk.  We will email you separately with details on this opportunity. Thank you for the feedback!

RaceAnalyzer + installation / software guides

What’s coming up? Expansion of RaceAnalyzer’s analysis capabilities and the matching documentation. Check it out and let us know your successes / questions on the forums.

Bluetooth Module / Mobile app status

Regrettably, development time on the mobile app is causing about a 4 week slip in the Bluetooth / mobile app perk deliveries. We will do everything we can to tighten that up, because we are seriously wanting it for ourselves too!  The plan is to get the app in  a state where a useful set of features exist- then ship it so you can start playing with it while we continue to iterate quickly, adding features and smashing bugs.

Telemetry Module

Revision B Cellular Telemetry module. getting close!

Shift Light

Well, the big news is that on Late Monday / Tuesday the 5th we shipped our first batch of RaceCapture/Pro units to the Indiegogo backers that jumped on the Data Junkie perk level! Here’s a picture of Kelley hauling boxes to the post office:

Haulin' boxes!

I sent a note to all of the initial perk recipients thanking them, providing some context around our project and letting them know where we stood on the documentation and software.  It was a bit more emotional than I expected.

I’d like to share it with you here:

Hi early adopters-

Once again, thank you for backing the RaceCapture/Pro Indiegogo project. This is a very personal experience for me: representing years of work and passion, it wasn’t always smooth: setbacks around problems with early hardware revisions, other project distractions due to lack of focus, and various personal crisis in family, relationships and friendships led to moments where I decided to put this project on the back burner and languish.

It almost didn’t take off!  Blaming everything else and just having memories of ‘what could’ve been’ would’ve been the safe thing to do, and thankfully that’s not where we are.

It wasn’t until the the dust settled in my life – especially with my wife (and co-ASL founder) Kelley steadfastly standing by my side –  and then later with the enthusiasm, inspiration and encouragement from early team members like Scott Miller, Brian Lalor and Fred Schechter did the push occur to get RaceCapture/Pro past one of what would be many finish lines.

It’s exciting and also a tad scary to see our creation in your hands. It’s left the protected environment of our own testing and our generously-forgiving beta testers and now resides in your possession. You: who actually put money down with no guarantees and just your belief in what we stood for and promised.  This is one of many amazing examples of what’s possible in this world, and is why we have been working so hard to honor our commitments to you. And, if something happens, we will communicate it to the best of our abilities.

While we feel pretty great about the current status of the hardware and firmware, the documentation is *currently* light and the associated RaceAnalyzer software *currently* has fewer features than we hoped. Emphasis on ‘currently’.  We hope you will ride along and help us test, report bugs, be enthusiastic about frequent software updates, and most importantly, contribute the the community by helping other users get the most out of their RaceCapture/Pro units.

Thanks again for joining us on this journey,

Brent Picasso

Autosport Labs

Ready for boxing!

Ready for shipping!

We have 28 RaceCapture/Pro boards assembled, reworked and awaiting functional testing before they can be installed into their sexy red enclosures.

All Decal'd up!

We’ve been putting in some serious hours wrapping up the last bit of work so you can have something truly useful in your hands! Our shipping target is Monday March 4 - A few days slip from the end of February yes- but we could really use the weekend to wrap up work.

Here’s what’s going to happen between now and Monday:

- Bring the Race Capture Analysis software to the point where useful to configure RaceCapture/Pro’s features and perform basic data analysis and playback, and with minimal crashy bugs. This software will continue to be heavily developed and updated throughout this year.

- Online documentation for Installation, Operation and some API documentation for the Lua Scripting capabilities (hats off to you hackers)

- Final firmware test

- Bootloader installation, firmware installation and functional test of the first 25 units.

- Boxing and shipping to all of you Data Junkies!

Note that the shift light bonus perk will be on it’s own track- when that’s ready we’ll be shipping those out separately.

As an aside, in late December I (Brent) experienced a big life event that was quite a tough moment for me and impacted work on this project for much of January. It truly sucked to deal with…  yet at the same time it was a source of some great personal growth. Unfortunately it affected the project timeline and delayed the richer set of features we had planned for RaceAnalyzer.  Maybe I’ll share the experience when I get some breathing room on this project.

So here we go! Thanks again for backing the RaceCapture/Pro project! Keep an eye on our Facebook page for the latest news as we draw near our shipping target!

In the meantime enjoy these pictures of this week’s production work!

Ready for parts!

Configuring the parts feeders for RaceCapture/Pro assembly

Scott building mass inventory

28 Staged for final testing

Here’s a bit on where we currently stand:

Production Status

We are flush with inventory to build all of the RaceCapture/Pro perks, but for now we will focus on the first 25 to sort out our manufacturing processes. Since we can do all of the assembling in house on our own production line, we have the agility to build small, medium or large batches as needed. All of that infrastructure we’ve built is paying off!

We’re going to document the production build for you – starting possibly this weekend. Yeah!

Software

Probably the area which needs most work is the Race Analyzer software package. The broad goals of Race Analyzer are 3 fold:

1. Provide the ability to configure RaceCapture’s features (channels, sample rates, GPS settings, Lua Script and so on)

2. Provide the ability to do basic data analysis, including importing multiple data logs, playback and comparison of session data side by side, offering line charts, digital and analog gauges, GPS track map, and G-force / yaw meter.  Our goal is to provide an MVP version of the software to get the early adopters up and running and then continue to develop, bug fix and enhance while we fulfill the different phases of the campaign.

3. Provide the ability to view runtime channel activity. This will let you monitor the data that RaceCapture is producing at a relatively low rate over USB link- primarily useful for diagnostics and setup, and not for actual logging.

RaceAnalyzer development is on the front-burner, and we plan to get some more screen shots of the software in action in a few days!

Firmware

While the RaceCapture firmware features have been stable for quite a while, there have been a few things going on here to make it complete- at least to the point to provide a viable, stable MVP set of capabilities.

Enhancements

Bootloader: We implemented a firmware bootloader: a tiny bit of firmware code that makes it much more convenient to load the main firmware image. Without this bootloader, users will need to take apart Race Capture, run a special, multi-step sequence for loading new firmware. It’s a PITA and is only good as a backup flashing mechanism (which is good because it makes RaceCapture “unbrickable”). As you can imagine, easy firmware updating is important, since fixes and enhancements will be happening frequently!

Virtual Channels: We’re working on a way to create virtual, calculated channels (aka derived channels on steroids)  in the Lua Scripting – this will be an exciting feature that will bring much value to the system. This deserves it’s own blog post- so watch for more details.

Sector / Split Time: We still need to add a sector / split time GPS target and related channel in the firmware. This is a relatively minor enhancement as we already have start/finish line detection built in.

Automatic Logging Start/Stop: Right now automatic start stop is made possible with a custom Lua script. We now think this should be a first class feature, so we’ll be implementing a speed based logging trigger. Other built-in ’start’ triggers will be forthcoming, such as a g-force triggered autocross launch detection.

Fixes

SD Card Compatibility: Who knew this was a common issue? Apparently the SD card protocol is one of the nastiest things for firmware engineers to deal with. We recently resolved a problem with that was preventing us from being able to use about 25% of the cards we tested. Turns out that if you implement the SD card specification, it does not guarantee all cards would work! Some deep researching into the initialization sequence of the SD card protocol with some healthy debugging mixed in helped us figure out what was going on. This is great knowing the firmware is just that much more robust: we feel confident it will work with almost any card (knock on wood!)!

Shift light

Our shift light prototype came back! The LED colors are bright and beautiful and the circuit board is sleek and compact. However, the bonus night dimming circuity feature we squeezed in did not work as hoped. Automatic dimming does occur; there just isn’t enough dynamic range to provide enough dimming at night. Ironically, after some experimentation / testing we may have an updated design that is actually *simpler*  - which is good, but will require a re-design. This time we will fully prototype it out before running the next batch of board– yes, we optimistically jumped the gun after being confident with simulation, so a small bummer there.  The result is we won’t be shipping the first 25 units with the shift lights; we will be sending these out separately after we have our design nailed down.

Bluetooth + Mobile App

The Bluetooth module and Mobile App is on a slightly slower track as we work to get the first 25 units shipped. We feel fairly confident we will be able to ship these perks out on track by the end of March. More details will be forthcoming as we shift our guns to this phase of the project. The one thing we are doing in the near term is finalizing the hardware design of the Bluetooth adapter so we can spin out the prototype boards fabrication in parallel with near-term work.

Telemetry

Our team is cranking on the Cloud portion of real time telemetry- we are bursting with excitement to share what we have going on at www.race-capture.com . Share with your racing friends- especially the ones that missed the indiegogo campaign, so they can be notified when Race Capture is available!

A final version of the telemetry module hardware is under design. Like the Bluetooth module, it will be spun out for fabrication while we work on other projects. Parallel processing, baby!

Thank You

Again, thank you for supporting our project- we have more announcements and project updates waiting in the wings. It’s truly an amazing time for us, and we’re glad you’re along for the ride.  MAY THE DATA DRIVE YOU!

Now we set to fulfilling our promises, and our goal is to surprise and delight you in the next couple of months. We have a lot of great information and updates coming up, starting with a big sensor initiative starting this weekend!

With gratitude from the entire Autosport Labs Team.

Presenting- Race Capture Pro: Open Source Data Acquisition, control and real time telemetry.

Thank you for supporting our indiegogo project!