Thread: Sheepview: XT GPX Pro

Originally Posted by RedRider

Did you get the optional external antenna, too?

No, I got the mount and wire kit. I will have to make up some rubber mounts for the mount plate like I did for the laptimer though

Arrived last night but I didn't mess with it other than to verify the bill was dated correct (it was )

The box, and then the contents; I added a holder and wire kit to the base unit.

I figured that this was coming your way. you had that link to it pretty handy.

I'll be interested to hear how hard it is to install... and what you think of it.

I really want one. I don't really have any reason or means to justify it but I want one.

Originally Posted by slickwill

I really want one. I don't really have any reason or means to justify it but I want one.

I'm in that same boat. but if I was gonna get it I would have done it before the new year to get in on that deal of sending an old timer in. I really don't need a machine to tell me where I'm slow cause I already know that, EVERYWHERE.

I think you'll like it quite well.

Some first impressions on setup:
The buttons are backwards it seems to me. The menu is top and select is bottom with the transversal buttons being right and left. However many menus (if not most) are top to bottom.

I installed a cut Apple Touch screen protector per some suggestions online that the screen scratches easy

It took me a try to install the driver but that is more me using VMWare than a real issue.

It will take a while to get used to it but the design looks like it is intended to be incremental in nature. Thus you could get one and just run it as a timer and lap mapper. I hope to get the suspension back on the RC and get RPM connected at a minimum before TGP (pending weather) then add stuff as I go.

I plot laptimes over the seasons to see time improvements. I will be testing the data export but don't expect it to be friendly to be honest.

It looks like it turns off at 5 MPH and on at 50 by default. That is fine but will miss the start of a race. It seems that a race mode would be nice where it starts then turns off on a time after minimum is reached and maintained. Thus it would start on the warm up lap but then stay on through the start

Not sure if I will be attempting to rubber mount it. The lap timers tended to shake apart on the RC if I did not....

Installed the power and RPM. The TPS I need to think on a bit as there is no way I am tapping the wires right on the ECU (seem to fine to me)

So last night I connected the TPS and calibrated it. I took a lot of time doing this as I was a bit skiddish on tapping an ECU line. I decided to tap the Power Commander line instead. So I found the diagram and there is three wires off the TPS which after a bit of examination I decided the Red/Yellow wire was the one I wanted. To double check I even searched a bit at Rogue which confirmed my thoughts (post by Hoov). Then I found that wire on the ECU plug which translated to a grey on the Power Commander side which I put a tap on. Then I routed the wire along the tank and up next to the RPM wire zip tying it in place. I have found a good place to pickup the speed sensor which is the last one in my initial setup and should get that tonight. Then I want to tape stuff up some for water resistance and wear resistance and it will be ready to test at Barber.

Some thoughts:
Not hard to set up but wiring it in is not for someone that lacks confidence
Wiring it in without the diagram in the Honda manual (or equivalent) would be ugly
Even without anything more than RPM which should be easy would likely still be useful
It would be nice to wire it direct to the sensor and solder the connection but that would require removing airboxes and other significant efforts (certainly a good alternative though)
Setup is easy so far though I can see areas that could be done better. I do need to ask them for a recommendation on TPS sampling as it is set to 100Hz which seems high even if the s/w is running a filter (I don't think it is)

I got the final sensor connected. It is the speed sensor and calibration was a bit of a pain. They want trigger points and circumference of the wheel. I did some web searches and eventually found the sensor on a RC51 has 27 pulses per revolution but this could be harder to find on some models. Of course if you have an external sensor it is simple to find. Next was circumference which is easy on a bridgestone slick as the tire diameter is built in 190/645/17 so just multiply by 2π Personally I think they need to do that internally and just make you enter diameter.

So all that is left is to calibrate the accelerometers and gear position if I want it (later they are going to add the ability to use speed sensor and RPM to do gears).

I began Saturday by calibrating the accelerometers, an easy procedure. They say you have to redo this each time you move the setup. Instead I took a punch and marked my bracket at a point that matched the point of the fork cap bolt.

The laptime part seemed to work well as did the track mapping.

Well I got things connected and wanted to download stuff at the end of Saturday but the laptop would not recognize it. The install CD has the driver but is a POS mini disc so I was unable to use it.

Once home I copied the disc to a full size CD and installed the driver at which point the download worked nicely.

I notice the RPM and TPS both go to zero to much the TPS could be correct but the RPM is obviously incorrect. The software is easy to use and overall it should be useful. I will need to setup the RPM better and test it a bit more. Also the day was terrible weather so it would be better to compare on a normal day instead.

You can export data to CSV if you want to process it some other way but that would require some coding which many people would not want to do. For instance I keep laptimes in a spreadsheet and to extract them from the CSV I would need to write something (though that would not be hard)

Overall I give it 3 hooves

You can download updates to the software (which is the full program) here: GPX Pro from XT Racing