We need a generator or some other fix.

Andrew Jonell · **Joined:** Mon Mar 23, 2009 6:43 pm **Posts:** 1350

David Teague wrote:

As far as printer on batteries, for years in IT we have generally told people not to put Printers and Copiers on UPS's because of the high power spike when the first start printing.

An Idea might be as mentioned above of mounting a flat screen on the Bus, have a old laptop hooked up to it. Print Results to PDF, copie pdf to Thumb Drive, plug in laptop hooked up to monitor, display PDF results.

We have live timing results available for everyone to browse at their leisure on their phone/tablet/laptop.

Steven Carter · **Posted:** Thu Apr 02, 2015 7:38 pm

In re grid sheets, we could go the route NCR uses...they have a grid worker who has the sole job of keeping the line full and making sure 2-driver cars are managed appropriately. A separate person has a hole puncher, and as you roll up to start you get your card punched. Once you get your card punched 4/5/6 times (depending on the number of runs) you were done. Works well, and there is one less need for a printer. Are there other ways we can do the event workflow without a printer, or is it just a must-have?

They also use the EU2000i Honda device. It is small. And silent. I walked by it quickly on my way to do a course walk and briefly thought "why are there power lines going into that gas can?"

Alec Moody · **Joined:** Fri Feb 15, 2013 9:02 am **Posts:** 299

Andrew Jonell wrote:

Scott Johnson wrote:

BriceJohnson wrote:

Especially if we post about it on the forums. . . I thought my bluff worked at the last event.

Based on the lack of workers in the 3rd heat, I don't think the honor system is working.

I talked with Alec yesterday over lunch with Rahul, and we were talking about some of the difficulties with doing the worker assignments. I don't think it's as bad this year as it was 2 years ago, but the biggest class, STR, was primarily composed of officers or had special worker assignments. So we'd make the run groups even (30-30-30), and then whenever STR was working, we'd be down by 5 or 10 people versus the other groups because the autox VPs, a novice coordinator, two of them would work timing, one was the chief of tech, and oh look... we now have 16 people to cover 8 stations + start + grid. Crap.

Not having a working printer compounds this a bit (as well as the other worker coordinator being drunk in a bar halfway across the world) since we are focusing on getting sheets written up by hand and not having the mental bandwidth to consider the edge cases that we need to work around.

In conclusion, we need a working printer.

Also, not having names on the hand written sheets makes it very hard to see that problem coming or know why people aren't showing up to work. We also had a couple of DNS / no shows that made it through the computer that were supposed to be working third heat but again, It was hard to tell what was happening.

Also, I learned that this year C street needs to always run separate from STR.

Jason Mauldin · **Posted:** Sat Apr 04, 2015 10:04 am

Andrew Jonell wrote:

and then whenever STR was working, we'd be down by 5 or 10 people versus the other groups because the autox VPs, a novice coordinator, two of them would work timing, one was the chief of tech, and oh look... we now have 16 people to cover 8 stations + start + grid. Crap.

Assuming that these people are mostly in one heat, why not split them into equal run groups instead of having them run in their class. That way no single heat takes the full load of those people.

Carlton Whitehead · **Posted:** Mon Apr 06, 2015 3:45 pm

Jason Mauldin wrote:

Andrew Jonell wrote:

and then whenever STR was working, we'd be down by 5 or 10 people versus the other groups because the autox VPs, a novice coordinator, two of them would work timing, one was the chief of tech, and oh look... we now have 16 people to cover 8 stations + start + grid. Crap.

Assuming that these people are mostly in one heat, why not split them into equal run groups instead of having them run in their class. That way no single heat takes the full load of those people.

Nay. In the early spring/winter events, this will lead to some drivers running when the temperature is 40F and others when it is 70F. Later in the year, that won't be as much of a factor, but the chance of rain during some heats but not others makes this an unfair proposal.

We can balance this out without sabotaging the competition in some of our most competitive classes by assigning a few of the smaller classes to the same heats as these officer/staff-heavy classes.

JamesMilko · **Posted:** Mon Apr 06, 2015 3:50 pm

Feature request for Carlton's timing program. The ability to flag entrants as special workers so they are excluded from worker counts. Also summing up 'available workers' per heat.

I wonder if AXWare can do this as well. I vaguely remember some worker related options in there.

Alec Moody · **Joined:** Fri Feb 15, 2013 9:02 am **Posts:** 299

Yeah. I was thinking that as well. It would be great if you keep a persistent default status on some people. Also, it would be cool if you could flag people for things like "can do timing."

Feature creep.

Carlton Whitehead · **Posted:** Mon Apr 06, 2015 9:21 pm

JamesMilko wrote:

Feature request for Carlton's timing program. The ability to flag entrants as special workers so they are excluded from worker counts. Also summing up 'available workers' per heat.

Alec Moody wrote:

Yeah. I was thinking that as well. It would be great if you keep a persistent default status on some people. Also, it would be cool if you could flag people for things like "can do timing."

These are excellent ideas. https://github.com/carltonwhitehead/coner/issues/new

JamesMilko · **Posted:** Tue Apr 07, 2015 7:59 am

We use bitbucket for work and my desire to sign up for yet another spam source is low.

David Teague · **Posted:** Tue Apr 07, 2015 11:17 am

Andrew Jonell wrote:

David Teague wrote:

As far as printer on batteries, for years in IT we have generally told people not to put Printers and Copiers on UPS's because of the high power spike when the first start printing.

An Idea might be as mentioned above of mounting a flat screen on the Bus, have a old laptop hooked up to it. Print Results to PDF, copie pdf to Thumb Drive, plug in laptop hooked up to monitor, display PDF results.

We have live timing results available for everyone to browse at their leisure on their phone/tablet/laptop.

Hmm Cool, then why even bother printing our results?

Andrew Jonell · **Joined:** Mon Mar 23, 2009 6:43 pm **Posts:** 1350

The only reason why we need to print our results is to true up the sheets at the end of the day and for trophies.

The bigger reason why we need a printer is to not necessarily print off our results, but for housekeeping and to have an organized and paper method of managing the event. For example: splitting up the run groups, checking people in for worker assignments, grid control, etc.

Carlton Whitehead · **Posted:** Tue Apr 07, 2015 1:35 pm

David Teague wrote:

Hmm Cool, then why even bother printing our results?

Also, I'm not aware that anyone has ever audited the code in my Instant Results project. For better or for worse, it doesn't just regurgitate every last detail that axware gives it, so it's quite possible the results could differ. That's a large part of the reason why it has all the dumb disclaimers when you first use it.

RickyBeam · **Posted:** Mon Apr 13, 2015 2:59 pm

So, at the rallyx @ VIR this past weekend... THE PRINTER WORKED. I cannot imagine what goes on at an autox that you cannot get that printer working. I printed the msr roster and several score sheets Saturday, and then several results Sunday -- using the *last* 5 sheets of paper on the bus.

(Yes, in high humidity, the paper will jam. Feed it one sheet at a time from the "envelope tray".)

If you really want to burn the money on a generator, you'll also need a camper/rv air conditioner so the bus doesn't have to be on to have A/C (and sometimes heat)

Andrew Jonell · **Joined:** Mon Mar 23, 2009 6:43 pm **Posts:** 1350

Plural of anecdote isn't data.

Hopefully Roger's inverter will work with the Samsung printer.

RickyBeam · **Posted:** Mon Apr 13, 2015 3:23 pm

As I've said many times now, every time I've used it (2 events this year, 9 last year), the printer has worked. I don't know why it doesn't work for autox.

The next event is NCCAR, but we may be using that weekend to prep for Lemons (5/2-3)

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We need a generator or some other fix.

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