Ultimate Racer

Hardware

Configure Ultimate Racer for a 3 lane analogue circuit

In this tutorial you'll learn how to configure UR30 for an analogic 3 lane circuit like a wood track. Basically:

  • slot car detection
  • lane power control


This tutorial assumes the analogue circuit is controlled by the PC parallel port. Some other tutorials describe USB joystick or USB serial control. The procedure remains the same.

Prerequisites

The slot cars sensors and lane power supply controllers have been built and connected on parallel port as follow:

  Lane #1
color: green
Lane #2
color: red
Lane #3
color: yellow
Slot car sensor LPT1 - pin #10 LPT1 - pin #12 LPT1 - pin #13
Lane control LPT1 - pin #2 LPT1 - pin #3 LPT1 - pin #4

The sensors are connected on input pins.

The controllers are connected on output pins.

Configure circuit

 

  • Hardware Settings ButtonClick on the Hardware Settings button in the Left-bar or on the Home Page
  • Views Menu Quick HeatOr choose "Configure hardware and circuit" from the Views list in the Header Menu
  • Or press F6 on your keyboard F6
  • Circuit settings tabThen click on the Circuit Settings tab

 

Create a new circuit OR change an existing one => Click on "Add" to create a new circuit, OR select an existing circuit in the circuit toolbar.

Change circuit settings:

Circuit Settings

Set a circuit name: "My 3 lane wood track" in this example.

Click on "Circuit picture..." if you want to add a circuit picture.

Select the circuit units: used as unit for all lane lengths. "meters" in this example.

Number of lanes: 3

Min lap time: 2000ms. Assumes a slot car lap cannot be lower than 2s. Any lap below this limit is ignored during a heat.

Then specify in the lane table each lane length and color:

Lane Lengths

Lane #1/green is 15.2m length

Lane #2/red is 14.8m length

Lane #3/yellow is 14.5m length

These lengths are used in all heat stats. They have to be reliable.

Configure hardware

Click on "Hardware" tab: Hardware Tab

The hardware toolbar displays all events managed by Ultimate Racer. The number of events has been updated when the number of lanes has been chosen.

Let's configure the hardware events to detect slot cars and control lane power supply:

Hardware Events

Click on "Detect slot car on lane 1". Select "LPT1" in "Configure hardware" list box, and select pin #10 in "Pin I/O" combo:

Hardware Events

Proceed in the same way for "Detect slot car on lane 2" and"Detect slot car on lane 3".

Click on "Switch power on/off on lane 1", then select "LPT1" in "Configure hardware" list box, and select pin #2 in "Pin I/O" combo.

Proceed identically for "Switch power on/off on lane 2" and "Switch power on/off on lane 3".

The hardware event toolbar looks like this when setup is completed:

Harware Events complete

Hint: use parallel port view to check if detection works and click on squares to check outputs:

Parallel Port