A few weeks ago, Robitronic put a new lap counting system on the market. Because this is one of the cheapest lap counters ever, my local club bought one directly (www.slotracersleuven.be) so I am very pleased to be able to make this review.
The package
For little 300eur (European Market, this is +/- $360) you can get the start package, which includes the following:
- 1x Lap count Interface (#RS165), the heart of the system
- 1x Cable to PC (#RS167)
- 4x Lap count Receiver (#RS164)
- 1x Receiver Cable (#RS166)
- 3x Transponder (#RS163)
- 1x Power Supply
Indeed, for the price of 300eur, you get 3 transponders with it. There is no bridge included. You can order every part separately from Robitronic.
The build up
The build up is really simple. In our case we build a wooden bridge. The width is 87cm, so it would perfectly fit over our RCP track, the height counts 50cm. We have put 3 receivers (one left!) on the bridge, in this way that there was a space of 15cm left on both sides of the track and a space of 25cm between the transponders (the manual described +/-30cm). The system is fed by a compact power supply and communicates with the PC over the serial port (RS232). Everything connects easily and the cables are long enough to create some distance between the track and the computer.
The System
The Robitronic Lap Counter System functions over infrared receivers and transmitters. The transmitters, also called transponders, are placed in the cars, in our case Mini-Z Racers. The receivers are on the bridge. The nice thing about this system is that every transponder has its unique ID (identification), this implicates that every pilot can have its own personal transponder and that during race you don’t have to do these annoying transponder switches. The price of a transponder is around 35eur, in my opinion a fair price. The dimensions of the transponder is very small, it is rather light en the consumption is low too (Specs will be added later, forgot the manual in the club). You could even remove the transponder housing to get even a smaller, lighter transponder. I have connected the transponder directly to the battery contacts of my MR02, but pay attention if you work this way: the transponder stays connected to your batteries even when the Racer is switched off!
The Test
Of course, after the system was installed, we immediately started racing against the clock. You can’t really say a lot, but because we were able to test the VOICE expansion of the software, we could always here a car passing a bridge and thus tell with some assurance that the system works without mistakes. I have to say that now and then, we encountered some glitches in our cars when passing the bridge, but I still have to investigate this: is the PC to close to the track, do we have to cover the cables properly…?
Update on the glitches:
We moved the the bridge farther away from the window (see pic bellow) and because of this the cable between the recievers and the LC interface was completely unwound. Adther this ALL the glitches were GONE. 
The Software
It’s bizarre, but when the hardware is good, it all depends on the software if the complete system is good, or not good. The software isn’t developed by Robitronic, but it comes from another Austrian company, RCM (www.rcp.ch). RCM had already developed a lap counting software for the AMB system and just had to add the Robitronic functionality. The Software that is with the system is the beginner’s version of the RCM software, the freeware version also available on their website. You can add a First Name and a Name to a transponder and the software will save it for you so you don’t have to insert this information again and again. You can setup event data (event – organizer – racetrack) and start a race based on that information. You can setup a race with a specific duration (and not lap count) and setup a minimum lap time to avoid shortcutting. After a race is finished you can print out reports or even generate an html file with it, very handy! You can create your own templates to personalize the reports. The company RCM has given us the Voice extension for testing. This extension does nothing more than reading out the lap times on your PC speakers. This tool is very handy when you are alone and you are hunting a badass perfect time. But from the moment you are racing with several people the soft just reads out too slow to understand right. As a slotter I am used to the famous DS System, a timing system for slot cars. With this in mind I miss some little features in the software. Something that is very interesting is to give a simple beep when hitting your personal best time in that session. Something I miss too is a delay (countdown with beep) between pressing the start button and actually starting.
The verdict
The system does what is has to do, counting laps and lap times. The right price and the fact that it has this interesting feature of having unique ID’s makes it for me the best timing system available for small Mini-Z clubs. GiroZ and LapZ are not only more expensive but also have less to offer…
The software is decent too even with the fact that the Beginners software is kept simple. I have no doubts that the Advanced version is at least as decent as the Beginners one and for a small price of 80eur you get really professional software to have qualification and race management.
I advice everybody to buy the Robitronic Lap Counting system, for a small price you give this extra dimension to your racetrack.