So last night I was finally able to test my custom digital setting circles setup on my AD12… it worked great!  I used the Astrosystems 10K encoder kit with the TeensyDSC and SkySafari on my iPad.  Here’s the photos of my setup:
My Digital Settings Circles setup using SkySafari on the iPad
Alt encoder and Wireless DSC module powered by a USB battery pack
I recently got my first generation PCB in the mail from OshPark and I’m happy to say that the board works just like I had planned! I was able to do some basic testing using 10,000 step encoders, but due to the power of the Teensy 3.1 board and being able to use interrupt driven decoding there shouldn’t be any problem handling 100,000 step encoders if you so desired. The good news is that the board did a great job of reporting the position of the encoders to Sky Safari Pro running on my iPad via a wireless WiFi connection!
Renderings of the board I actually ended up using:
Photos of the board with the necessary components installed:
Notice there are some missing parts on the PCB. Â That’s because so far I’ve only soldered on the parts necessary to power it via USB. Â The missing parts are for powering it via 12V DC.
It also fits nicely in this small plastic enclosure I have:
As you can see, this board is smaller and much simpler then the earlier board I designed. I did this because it wasn’t going to be possible to fit the original board in the small plastic enclosure I had picked out and most of the features I wasn’t actually going to use/need and I wanted to focus on getting the basic DSC features tested and working.
After Round 3, I was able to get a lot of track riding in which ended up being both good and bad. The bad came early- a lowside while riding the new full 5 mile Thunderhill course. Both I and the bike came away with only minor damage (me bruised ribs, the bike just damaged controls) but it was enough to end my day. The good was both I and the bike were easily fixed and I was able to do 2 more days at Thunderhill (in ~110F heat!) before the AFM race weekend. All the extra riding really helped my “bike fitness” as I always find that no matter how much I work out in the off season, I can’t replicate the kind of motions while aggressively riding out on track.
I did the Friday trackday of the race weekend I had two goals:
After missing the last three rounds (my engine leaking oil from the cases at Round 7 last year, an electrical issue for round 1 and an injury sidelining me for round 2), I was desperate to finally get back out on track. I literally hadn’t been on a motorcycle since October of last year and I felt like a heroin addict in withdrawal. There was of course the small issue of a severed tendon in my left middle finger which had me sidelined last round. I remember having the following conversation with my physical therapist just a few days days before round 3:
Me: So when do you think I can start moving my finger and start racing? I have a race in little over a week.
PT: Racing? Like a marathon? Oh, no you can’t do that, far too dangerous! You might trip and fall and hurt your finger!
Me: Actually I was talking about bike racing.
PT: Oh, no, that’s far worse… people crash in bicycle racing all the time and you might re-injure your finger!
Me: Uhm… not bicycle racing, motorcycle racing…
At this point I got that look motorcycle racers have been getting from “normal” people since the beginning of time. You know the one- it’s where you suddenly you feel the need to touch your shoulder just to make sure that you don’t have a second head growing out of it. Clearly I wasn’t going to the answer I was looking from the physical therapist! She did however say that the final decision on these matters would be up to my doctor: Dr. Ting.
As luck would have it, I had a follow up with Dr. Ting on Tuesday the 27th and he cleared me to start moving the finger for the first time in 7 weeks and said it was OK to ride if I wrapped my finger to help support it. Two days later I had the truck loaded up and I was driving up to Thunderhill Raceway! Continue reading
So I just ordered a few new boards from OshPark:
This was a major update which fixes all know bugs (many which are severe) and improves the protection of the circuit.
