OK kids, I broke down and got one so it's time for a real review. FYI, I have been a software developer working in the business for almost 30 years so I'll try not to be too critical
For those who are unknowing and who like to speculate if other software will work, please don't. Kyosho is a closed environment and doesn't open their stuff up so others can tweak it. I don't see this changing anytime in the near future so the software they give us is all we get unless we hack it. I saw mention of "flipside" and if somebody could put me in touch I will see what I can help with.
What you get - In the box is the pickup strip, a USB cable, and a CD. Pretty simple software install. Plug in the device to available USB port and immediately tell the Hardware Wizard you will tell where the drivers are located. Point it to the driver directory on the CD, finish the wizard... then do it again for a second time for the serial port driver. Once that is done just run the installer for the lap manager software itself which is pretty straightforward.
Physical installation - There are two boxes on either side of the pickup and they are small but big enough you will have to plan where you are going to put them. If you are using on a Mini-96 RCP system like I am you will have a lot of excess cable from the pickup. You cannot fold it up or stash it and the excess must go to the outside of the track so keep that in mind. Also the little boxes measure roughly 3.75"(l) x 2.25"(w) x .75"(h) and you will need to have one on the infield of the track. That means it will need to be located in the junction where infield curves exist.
Software General - The software is fairly rudimentary and if you've ever gotten used to full featured race management software, you will be disappointed so just get used to it. This software is great and provides the minimal basics but falls way short of being any way to conduct real races.
The absolute worst feature of this software is it's fixed resolution. They claim 1024x768 and even that is incorrect. It looks like you need at least 1200px wide so you can get to the buttons as well. I have it set up on my 1024x600 Asus Eee 901 netbook and it is doable if just running a couple cars but a little bit of a pain. I ended up setting it up on an older laptop so I didn't have to deal with moving the window around for everything I wanted to do.
There is a minimum lap setting, but there is still an issue with it. By default it is set to 2 seconds which is fine but if a car crashes and comes to rest on the line, it will grant a lap to that car every 2 seconds until the car is marshaled. This also means if a driver is running behind they could theoretically cheat by parking on the line and racking up a couple short laps
There is really no programmatic way to resolve this problem as the software cannot know one way or another what an intentional or unintentional lap may be. The best way to resolve this is run your track for a while and get an idea of what the fastest lap times are. Then just set the minimum lap time 'somewhat" under to that. Make sure to make it far enough below the fast time to allow for lap time improvements or you will inadvertently drop laps.
The manual mentioned the system's inability to count 2 cars at the same time!! I am assuming this means the exact same time because I tried in vain to get this to fail during my initial testing and got cars within a couple thousandths of a second and the system worked fine. I am kind of ignoring this anyways because in all of my years of professional r/c racing, I have seen ties happen like 2, maybe 3 times ever!
The documentation also mentioned compatibility with IC tags for Mini-Z so it looks like we will get to use those as soon as they become more readily available.
The 9 cars up on screen are great but it sure would be great if this was configurable. As you have seen in the screenshots, each box shows laps, time, and fast lap along with the lap it happened on.
There is also what I consider a pretty nasty bug. The first lap is always counted. In the Free Run mode it doesn't matter, but in the Sprint and Endurance modes, it is a big deal. Yes the partial lap is supposed to get counted towards the total time, but it is usually thrown out and the first time crossing the line that is the trigger for the actual start. It's odd they seem to throw it out for best lap, but they count it as a real lap in the list of laps. This is incorrect. Ether you do both, or not at all.
Reading/Writing IC Data - This part is slick. Place a car on the pickup loop, find an unused car slot from the 9 given, and click "Enter". It reads the original car name which for me was “MAZDA 787B No.55 Le Mans 1991 Winner”. A bit wordy and not matching the body I was running so I changed mine to "Rothmans Porsche 962c" and saved. This is pretty neat because you can embed your name in your IC tag and take to with you to various tracks.
Output Laps to CSV File - While there is not a printing option, at least they let you dump the current output to a CSV file. You can then import to an Excel spreadsheet or if you prefer, a Google Documents spreadsheet. By choosing the latter, you can share with friends
Racing Mode, Free Run - Essentially open practice. Never ending clock so you can test and tune cars and setups. The best way to set up for this setting is to enter all of your cars (I only have 2) and start the clock. That way you can pick up any car, run and test and the laps get recorded without further computer interaction.
Racing Mode, Sprint - In this mode you set a number of laps to reach and all cars race to be the first person to get that number of laps (5 by default). By default it is 5 and I was thinking this might be an interesting way to conduct qualifying. This mode is fairly useless for a single user unless you really wanted to see how fast you can get to a certain amount of laps.
Racing Mode, Endurance - This is the most traditional race mode. With this mode you try to get the most number of laps within the given amount of time. By default it is set to 3 minutes which I think is perfect on our smaller home dNano tracks. Much better than the standard 5 minute qualifiers we run for bigger cars and tracks. Of course it is adjustable so you can make the race duration as long as you want.
Hot Remote Tip - Since I was restricted to placing the pickup loop in one spot of my track room, I started to hate that it was on the other side of the room. Especially since I am in a long knee recovery from my accident. So my trick solution was to set up RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) and I can remote into my other laptop and run everything from my netbook. Great if you decide to use a desktop to control the hardware but would like to leverage a wireless network and use a laptop to trigger events.
Linear Mode
