ISSA - International Slalom Skateboarding Association

I only have experience with one type of game pad controller with Chronocone -- and it was a cheap one.

I did build a front-end interface circuit to take some of the noise out of directly connecting long wires to the contacts in the gamepad. It consists of opto-isolators that take the tape switch contacts to turn on the LED, and the detectors then go to some transistors to switch across the contacts of the game pad inputs.

I should tell you that most modern slalom skateboard races today use the Trackmate hardware coupled with Marcus Seyfarth's "Excelmate" software. This is the most reliable, easy-to-use setup.

We still occassionally use our Chronocone for some events that don't use the standardized spreadsheets.....

-- Pat

Pat,

Thanks for that, never thought of trying an opto couple, and when I started I had hoped that the gamepad would be enough to get us up and running. Would you be able to send to me your circuit diagram via BGriffiths@bigpond.com, please?

It is interesting that the other gamepad buttons seem quite de-sensitised to the interference, which is why I was hoping to be able to reconfigure the program to pick up the other buttons to test it out. (which begs another much harder to ask question, cause I suspect that it involves the source code) Can it be re-configured by me?

We do have an early model trackmate down here for when we all get together, with Colin Beck, but that is in Sydney, and I don't think that it has the data interface, and we are trying to grow the sport on a very small budget, so for now a new trackmate is a bit out of reach, and Chroncone simply makes more sense!

Regards
Bernie

Pat,

Got Chronocone hardware working OK.
Thanks for all your support.

New USB interface for Chronocone!

See http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/New-Zero-Del ... SwsN9XAhvr


It is a module for arcade style game consoles, and is so much easier to use than game-pads, because the switch connectors are human size.
It also seems to be a lot more reliable than the game-pads.

Testing so far looks like Opto-isolator is not needed, because it is built for those big buttons on arcade machines.

Cheers again Pat!