Best value data logger equipment - friction circle display | GTAMotorcycle.com

Best value data logger equipment - friction circle display

M

mstram

Well-known member
Forum Sponsor
What is the best value data logging equipment to attach to rebel 300 / rebel 500 ... cbr250 .... ?

If I have to replace the stock instruments that's ok.

In that case, I would start off with the standard displays (spd / oil press / temp ... gear ind ./ etc)

I'm interested in seeing a "friction circle", preferably *live* on the bike, but if only avaiable offline on the pc-software, that would be ok.

I found the AIM site, : Aim Academy - Aim Technologies
stuff looks good .... but pricey.

I've been looking for "beginner guides" on Youtube,as well as as general info on data logging companies, equipment, hardware, software

Mike
 
To start off this is a terrible idea that ends in tears. A friend did roughly this on a pedal bike to satisfy their curiosity. Experiment ended after a concussion. You only know where the edge of the friction circle is after you pass it (and if you find the edge first on the front wheel, that's a crash).

Moving on from that, I would look for some phone app. Mems accelerometers are ok. Attach an old phone rigidly to the bike in an orientation that makes sense (probably laying flat and inline with the bike).

Live display is a ridiculously bad idea. If you are watching the g-meter screen, your eyes are down and you are almost 100% going to crash sooner rather than later. You could look after a corner to see peak within the last 30 seconds or something. Still a dumb idea to care about g's on the street.
 
I have no idea what you're talking about but for the three bikes you listed, I would not spend any money on them other than fuel and maintenance.

Edit: I watched some of the motorcycle related video and I have to agree with GL, looks more track focused than for road use IMO.
 
RaceChrono (the basic version) is free on Android devices and has very nifty G-force and lean angle graphs/meters. Most phones are limited to 1Hz GPS (one GPS update per second) which is not very useful, so it works best with an external GPS booster like a Garmin Glo which supports 10+ Hz. The G-force and lean angles are extrapolated from your GPS speed and turning radius, so more GPS updates per second is better. The app is also capable of accessing the built-in gyros and accelerometers from your phone, but those signals are typically too noisy to be very useful.

Harry's Lap Timer is another similar option, but I haven't used that one. The apps will allow you to view a live graph/meter, but I will firmly agree that doing so is a really bad idea. RaceChrono logs all the data and lets you view it later in many different ways. You need to pay for RaceChrono Pro in order to see the lean angle, but I think the G-force is available in the free version. You can even overlay the RaceChrono data onto an action camera video:
 
Aside from the technical aspects, what would you like to do with this information? I use RaceChrono on the track to record lap and sector times. The G-force and lean angle meters are fun to play around with and look good on a video overlay, but even in a track setting they are not very useful by themselves.

The data has no correlation to actual surface/traction conditions, so you definitely wouldn't want to make any real-time decisions based on this data, even on a racetrack where the conditions are fairly stable from one lap to another. You wouldn't want to make any significant decisions based on this data even if you could compare your data to someone else's data on a similar bike on the same tires/track/day.
 
Impossible to calculate "friction circle" with an instrument moiunted on your dash without knowing stuff like coefficient of friction of your tires, suspension, surface conditions and road temperature, turn camber, centre of gravity of both rider and the bike combined, etc. Even 1-2 psi change in tires will affect grip and when you have it and when you will lose it.

Just too many variables above and beyond what can be measured using an IMU.
 
Take the money you wanted to spend on this data-logging nonsense and use it to take a track-oriented riding course - Racer5 and FAST are two that run locally.

You do not want live displays of any of this stuff. Whatever attention you are paying to them, is attention you should be paying to riding properly. The most anyone has for real-time display to the rider, is a live last-lap-time display (e.g. the Solo2 system).

Serious data-logging only starts showing up at national-level competition (CSBK at a minimum) and even at that level, most participants don't log every conceivable piece of data. At world-level competition (WorldSBK, MotoGP) the teams have full-time data analysts looking at this stuff.
 
Ash said:
RaceChrono (the basic version) is free on Android devices and has very nifty G-force and lean angle graphs/meters. Most phones are limited to 1Hz GPS (one GPS update per second) which is not very useful, so it works best with an external GPS booster like a Garmin Glo which supports 10+ Hz. The G-force and lean angles are extrapolated from your GPS speed and turning radius, so more GPS updates per second is better. The app is also capable of accessing the built-in gyros and accelerometers from your phone, but those signals are typically too noisy to be very useful.

Harry's Lap Timer is another similar option, but I haven't used that one. The apps will allow you to view a live graph/meter, but I will firmly agree that doing so is a really bad idea. RaceChrono logs all the data and lets you view it later in many different ways. You need to pay for RaceChrono Pro in order to see the lean angle, but I think the G-force is available in the free version. You can even overlay the RaceChrono data onto an action camera video:
Click to expand...
What is that video ?

Looks like some kind of demo / generated 3d track ?
 
mstram said:
What is that video ?

Looks like some kind of demo / generated 3d track ?
Click to expand...

That's a real video from a GoPro or similar action camera, with the RaceChrono gauges/data overlaid on top. Most good action cameras these days have image stabilization to remove the vibrations and bumps, so they can look unnaturally smooth. Here's a good example on a bike:
 
Ash said:
That's a real video from a GoPro or similar action camera, with the RaceChrono gauges/data overlaid on top. Most good action cameras these days have image stabilization to remove the vibrations and bumps, so they can look unnaturally smooth. Here's a good example on a bike:
Click to expand...
That's exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for

Is that your bike / equipment ?

If so or not .. do you know what the equipment / software is ?
 
mstram said:
That's exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for

Is that your bike / equipment ?

If so or not .. do you know what the equipment / software is ?
Click to expand...
That's not my video, but I've produced the same sort of videos for my own use. To create a video like that you basically just need a smartphone running the RaceChrono app and any camera capable of taking video. In order to get data that approximates reality, you really also need an external GPS booster like a Garmin Glo.

The camera in the video happens to be an Insta360 ONE RS which is a fancy 360 degree action camera, but your phone camera or any cheap action camera will also work. RaceChrono has integration with certain models of GoPro in order to automatically sync the video with the recorded data, but you can manually synchronize video from any type of camera to the data if you need to.

You record your riding session data with RaceChrono on your phone (ideally paired with an external GPS booster), then import the video into RaceChrono and configure whatever gauges you want to overlay. You can view the video with the overlaid data on your phone, or export it to view on your PC/etc.

Some features of RaceChrono are only available with RaceChrono Pro, but the full app is less than $30.

There is some discussion about data logging in a post from last year. In that thread I attached some actual screencaps from my own recordings to show sample line graphs of GPS-derived information (speed, G-force, lean angle), and information derived from the phone sensors (gyroscopes and accelerometers).
Forum Sponsor
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom