World's Least Expensive Pinewood Derby Timer

Well, okay, maybe that's a bit rash. It is the least expensive electronic pinewood derby timer I've ever found! In fact that's the reason this project exists. As I looked through Scouting magazine and on the Internet the least expensive timer I could find was approximately $160 per lane. I thought that was a bit pricey for something as simple as a timer for a pinewood derby. My timer cost about $25 total for three lanes, the most expensive component being the lane sensors at about $3 each.

I was the committee chairman of a Cub Scout pack in Provo, Utah (Cub Scout Pack 51, a community sponsored unit). Each year we spent about $50 to rent an electronically timed Pinewood derby track. After a couple of years of asking (begging) I finally convinced one of the fathers in the pack to build the physical track. My part of the deal was to build the electronics to time the cars. A friend at work (Dave Owen, VP of engineering at Novell back in the day) who is a hardware engineer was willing to help with the hardware design so that left me to construct the hardware and to write the software.

Table of Contents

 

The Track

The Pack purchased the lumber, screws, bolts, and other hardware to construct the regulation Cub Scout Pinewood Derby track as described in The Cub Scout How-To Book. This track has three lanes and is made from two sheets of 4'x8' plywood making the track 32 feet long by 2 feet wide. The total cost of materials for the physical track was $50. I should warn you that it took about 2 months of hard work in the evenings and weekends to finish construction of the track.

The two most important features of the track are first, that it has room below the track at the finish line to allow the cable from the lane sensors to pass out from under the track without being crushed or bent too severely.

Second, the start gate is operated automatically rather than manually. By this I mean that the lowering (or starting) action of the gate should be operated mechanically rather than by people power. For example, on our track the gate is held in the "up" position by a person and then simply released. A rubber band pulls the gate down out of the way of the cars to allow the race to start. This guarantees that the gate is lowered at the same speed for each race.

If your gate is operated by a person rather than a mechanical system (such as our rubber band) then the race results can be significantly altered by the starter not lowering the gate at the same speed each time. Since the computer software measures races down to better than 1/1,000,000th of a second, the computer can easily detect this starting gate difference at the finish line.

The only other note is the need for a steady source of light placed over the track pointing at the lane sensors. I use a cheap clip on lamp to do the job (about $2 at your local hardware store). It must be an incandescent light (a regular light bulb), not florescent. The computer can "see" the 60 Hz power pulses in a florescent tube and will mistake them for race finishes. You can clip this light onto the back of a chair and shine it at the track. Anything that will flood the light sensors with steady light will work.

The Electronics

I reasoned that since I had a laptop computer that I was willing to use to time the cars that the hardware shouldn't be that expensive. All it needed to do was recognize when the race started and then register each car as it crossed the finish line. It didn't seem to me that this needed to cost $160 per lane! By using the laptop computer to do all the decision making and timing I could reduce the "external" hardware to a very minimal set.

The Hardware

In the following example from the source code you can see that the software supports the parallel port as the input device to the PC. The software makes implicit assumptions that the start sensor and lane sensors are in bit order on the port. So, as seen below, the start switch should be hooked to pin 15 which is bit 0 of the status port (or to pin 2 which is data bit 0). The lane sensors should be hooked up in order starting with pin 13 (or pin 3).

The safer choice is to use the status port bits (pins 15, 13, 12, 10, 11) because all parallel ports support input from these pins. Some parallel ports also support input from the data bits (pins 2-9). These are the ECP/EPP ports. They are also known as enhanced parallel ports or bi-directional parallel ports. The only advantage to using the data bits over the status bits is that there are more data bits which means more inputs and thus more lanes. If you are building the standard three lane track I'd strongly encourage you to use the status bits.

#define LPT1_PORT        0x3BC
#define LPT2_PORT        0x378
#define LPT3_PORT        0x278

#define DATA_PORT        (LPT_BASE + 0)
#define STATUS_PORT      (LPT_BASE + 1)
#define CONTROL_PORT     (LPT_BASE + 2)
#define ECP_CONTROL_PORT (LPT_BASE + 0x402)

// In the following comments two pin numbers are listed. The actual pin
// that will be read depends on the setting of the INPUT_SOURCE parameter.
// If it is set to 1, then pins 2-9 are used, if 0 then pins 15, 13, etc. are
// used. This setting is based on two things: 1) if the port address for
// the printer is 0x3BC then we always use 15-11. 2) If the
// command line switch 'T' is specified as 0 we always use 15-11, if it is 1
// then we use pins 2-9.
// Pins 15-11 are the safest set and work on all ports, pins 2-9 only work
// under certain circumstances, but it gives you 3 more bits.
#define START_BIT       0x01        // pin 2 or 15
#define LANE1_FINISH    0x02        // pin 3 or 13
#define LANE2_FINISH    0x04        // pin 4 or 12
#define LANE3_FINISH    0x08        // pin 5 or 10
#define LANE4_FINISH    0x10        // pin 6 or 11
#define LANE5_FINISH    0x20        // pin 7
#define LANE6_FINISH    0x40        // pin 8
#define LANE7_FINISH    0x80        // pin 9

Lane Sensors

The physical lane sensors are simple NPN phototransistors (Sylvania part # ECG 3037 or NTE3037) hooked to the parallel port input pin with a pull-up resistor. The wiring for each lane is: Input pin to transistor collector to resister to positive; Transistor emitter to ground. See the files section of the forum for transistor parts sources.

Start Sensor

The connection of the start switch is exactly identical except that the transistor is replaced with the switch (see schematic below). This switch can be any normally open momentary contact switch such as Radio Shack #275-1547.

The type of switch you use will depend on the way your start gate is arranged. In our case we use a roller lever switch (RS # 275-017) mounted on the side of the track that is engaged when the gate is in the "up" or starting position. When the gate is lowered to allow the race to start the contact is broken. For accurate timing it is vital that the start gate be operated mechanically rather than manually (see note above).

Ground Lines

Pins 18-25 on the DB25 connector that goes to the computer need to be hooked to ground on the circuit. You need to hook the ground from the circuit to any/all of the DB25 pins 18-25. These are all ground lines on the DB25 connector. Note that on some laptops do not connect all the pins (18-25) to ground. Sometimes only some of the pins are hooked up. To make sure that you get a good ground connection, I suggest that you tie all the pins (18-25) on the connector together and hook that to ground on the circuit.

Schematic

Here's a picture of how each sensor is connected:

Sensor connection

Note that in this schematic the pin numbers for the data pins are listed. You should substitute the proper pin numbers depending on whether you are using the status pins (suggested) or the data pins.

You can get a printable copy of the full schematic in PDF format here (about 90K). This schematic is setup for status pin input and includes an optional power supply section.

Parts List

Lane Sensor (one per lane), $3 each
NPN Phototransistor, Philips Sylvania ECG 3037 or equivalent (NTE3037)
Specifications:
VCBO: 50V
VCEO: 25V
IC: 50ma
I Dark: 500na
I Light: 10ma
PT: 150mw
See the files section of the forum for a list of parts sources for the transistor.
Power Supply, $8
6 volt, 150ma "wall wart" AC adapter, Radio Shack #273-1454
Resistors (package of 5), $0.99
10K ohm, 1/4 watt (Radio Shack #271-1335) or 1/2 watt (Radio Shack #271-1126)
Start Sensor, $2
I use a roller level switch (Radio Shack #275-017) but you can use any normally open, momentary contact switch depending on the design of your start gate and track.
Start Sensor Connection Wire, $4
Measure how long your track is and add 5 to 10 feet depending on where you will position your computer and electronics. Go to Radio Shack and purchase the least expensive spool of stranded, 2-conductor wire that meets your needs. You should be able to find a spool for around $4 (example: 50 feet of 24 gauge stranded 2-conductor speaker wire, Radio Shack #278-1301, $3.19).
NOTE: Only purchase stranded-conductor (not solid-conductor) wire. Stranded conductor wire is made up of several smaller wires twisted together. This wire is much more tolerant of the bending and unbending that will occur as you use the track.
Misc., $???
Other miscellaneous components you may need include: a circuit board to mount the components on (a 4 inch square board should be plenty); a connector to plug into the back of your computer (DB-25 Male/Pin); a cable to stretch from the circuit board to the back of the computer; a few feet of small gauge stranded hookup wire to connect between the circuit board and each lane sensor; solder; soldering iron; etc.
Most of this stuff should be laying around in your junk box if you are any kind of hardware geek at all. If you have to borrow or purchase a soldering iron to complete this project then I suggest that you beg some help, rather than a soldering iron, from a friend.
Clip on lamp, $2
As noted under The Track above you need to have a steady source of light for the sensors to operate correctly. I use an inexpensive aluminum shell clip-on lamp that I picked up at the hardware store.

Timer Boards For Sale Sorry, no longer avaiable

Due to reduced requests for the boards over the last year, I've decided not to manufacture any more of these boards. I've now sold the last of my existing stock so they are no longer avaiable. Sorry for the inconvenience.

I now no longer have timer boards available for sale! These are single-sided, bare boards, approximately 1.25 by 2 inches, that are ready to have the components installed. These boards use the status pins for input so they support at most 4 lanes. They are available two ways: just the bare board ($6), or the bare board plus the right-angle DB-25 connector ($10). Either way, the 10K resistor pack needed for the project is included with each board.  In order to complete the project you will need to add the following components:

You may not need the resistor pack OR the power supply components (9v battery clip, Zener diode, 220 ohm resistor) if your computer has built-in pull-up resistors. Unfortunately there is no simple way to know if your computer has the built-in resistors. Some do, some don't. If your computer does not have pull-up resistors your timer may operate erratically or it may give sluggish results.

Here is a picture of the bare board and a completed board if you are interested.

Assembly Instructions (for the V2 boards):

Assembly instructions for the original V1 boards are archived here.

Refer to the completed board photo as necessary:

The Software

The software, including source, is available on github.

The heart of the system is the software, designed to run under MS-DOS (not WinDoze), that watches the sensors and manages the race. This software is fairly simple in design. The major components are a configuration function which allows you to specify which parallel port to use (the default is LPT1) and what pins to read (default is status pins); an input function which reads the input signal bits from the port; and a timing function which is able to read the 1.193Mhz clock that all PCs use as their time base.

Wrapped around these basic functions is the simple logic which manages the race. To start a race you must enter the number of cars to be raced. The cars are numbered from 1 to 'n' (where 'n' is the number of cars) in no particular order. There must be at least as many cars as your track has lanes (if you have less cars, use the L command line option to tell the software you have less lanes). The computer will begin the racing by having you put as many cars on the track as you have lanes, starting with car #1 in lane 1 and car #2 in lane 2 and so on. The software then confirms that all the sensors are in the appropriate state and then awaits the start of the race. Once the race has started the computer waits for all the cars to cross the finish line. Once all the cars have crossed the finish line the computer asks if it should record this race and move on or if you want to rerun that heat. Once you record a race the computer will instruct you to put on the next set of cars. The second race will simply shift each car over one lane so car #2 will be in lane 1 and car #3 in lane 2 and so on. This insures that each car races exactly once in each lane to eliminate any variance in the speed of different lanes.

Quickly thinking through the problem should tell you that you will only run as many races as you have cars (no matter how many lanes you have). This process goes quite quickly for all but the largest packs. The average time for each heat is somewhat less than 30 seconds if you are at all efficient. This means that if you have a pack of 40 boys you will be done in under 20 minutes. This is quite an improvement if you are used to manual racing using the elimination heat system.

Also, if you think about it, on an electronically timed track adding more lanes doesn't help. Every car has to run in every lane and you always run as many races as you have cars. Therefore, save yourself time, money, effort and energy and build only a three lane track. This allows enough cars to run at any one time that the boys are still interested in the race but doesn't create a major problem in construction, storage, etc. It also conveniently matches the track plans in The Cub Scout How-To Book.

There are three optional command line parameters to the program as follows:

Px = Set the port number to x (x is 1, 2 or 3 for LPT1, LPT2 or LPT3)
    -- OR --
Pxxx = Set the port address to xxx (xxx is in hex)
Tx = Port type 0 or 1 (0 = read from status port, pins 15-11 or 1 = data port, pins 2-9*)
Lx = Set the number of lanes (default is 3)

* Note that the use of the data pins for input (option T1) requires an EPP or ECP parallel port.  These ports support bi-directional I/O on the data pins.  Most older computers do not have EPP/ECP ports.  If you are planning to use an older computer with a larger track (more than 4 lanes) you should confirm that it has an EPP/ECP port.

Here are some examples of using the various command line parameters

If you run the software and use the diagnostic function (3) it will show you what port address you are using and what pins you are using. It also shows the current (real-time) state of all the pins so you can see each bit change back and forth as needed. This is very helpful for diagnosing problems with the track installation.

Here's an example output from the diagnostics function: 

Port Diagnostics
Configuration:
Lanes: 3
LPT Port: 0x378
Input: Status (pins 15, 13, 12, 10, 11)
Bits     Clicks
00001011 17
The bits displayed are, from RIGHT to LEFT, Start Gate, Lane 1, Lane 2, Lane 3 ... (this is opposite to the order listed in the 'Input: ' line above, e.g. the right hand bit is pin 15 in the above example). All bits should be at 0 in the normal starting state for a race (start gate closed, all lanes clear).

Presently the software has an arbitrary limit of 100 cars.

Pictures

Several people have asked to see pictures of the track and I've finally relented.  Here are several pages that show close up shots of different parts of the track and electronics.  These pages each contain one or two large images (1024x768, about 140K each) and may take a while to load if you have a slow connection.

This page maintained by James H. Brown.


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