We need a generator or some other fix.

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

Transcribing 80+ entries accurately onto notebook paper between when registration closes and the drivers meeting ends is a huge pain in the ass. Also, because of limited time, I haven't been including names, just class and number. Unless I recognize the number, I can't tell if a missing worker is someone who did gate duty, was an event chair, or any other non cone chasing person. Basically, there is little to no accountability for workers showing up and it makes dealing with walk up requests and questions nearly impossible.

Notebook paper did help a whole lot this weekend. Leonard Berta let me steal a few sheets out of his notepad. If we do have to run another event with no printer I made up a template I can print out for use as worker or grid sheet. I can probably modify it for raw sheets as well.

I am told the old generator is still sitting somewhere but is extremely loud.

steve remchak · **Posted:** Tue Mar 31, 2015 8:03 pm

Louder than I am?

Scott Johnson · **Posted:** Tue Mar 31, 2015 8:11 pm

How is it that a new printer requires more power than a 10 year old printer? This is a recent problem.

MikeWhitney · **Joined:** Wed Aug 20, 2003 9:15 pm **Posts:** 4724

Cash Davidson wrote:

Typical laser printer is 6A @ 120V, therefore 6x120=720W
Typical PC is 300W

Let's say you have 1500W of total load at 120V.

Now let's say you have the heavy-duty 90A alternator in the bus. 90Ax12V = 1080W.

If you assume you need 1/3rd of the alternator capacity to run the bus electrics and air conditioning, etc; that leaves you about 725W to power appliances - probably not enough.

Cash

You're forgetting about the bus batteries in your maths. And the fact that the duty cycle on the laser printer is oh, probably 0.1% of a typical day. Re-do in Amp-hrs and you'll see that there's plenty of energy to go around.

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

It's sharp, instantaneous spike that trips the inverter. Peak draw on more modern printers is only 700W for a short amount of time, but I still think it's the step-function-esque power curve that is causing the issue.

We could get a cheap, 4 stroke generator or spend the better part of a year all earning our degrees in electrical engineering.

Jason Mauldin · **Posted:** Wed Apr 01, 2015 8:58 am

Is there an assumption that the printer won't trip the inverter on a generator as well? Or has that been tested? Start-up of a laser printer is an issue even in a relatively stable house environment. Is a laser printer the right tool for this task?

Let's go green and use a tablet instead of paper. That way you could tie directly into the database on the laptop and you would know instantly whether or not someone worked.

Vincent Keene · **Posted:** Wed Apr 01, 2015 10:16 am

Jason Mauldin wrote:

Let's go green and use a tablet instead of paper. That way you could tie directly into the database on the laptop and you would know instantly whether or not someone worked.

Or mount a cheap monitor to the bus so people can view their results?

Cash Davidson · **Posted:** Wed Apr 01, 2015 10:54 am

MikeWhitney wrote:

Cash Davidson wrote:

Typical laser printer is 6A @ 120V, therefore 6x120=720W
Typical PC is 300W

Let's say you have 1500W of total load at 120V.

Now let's say you have the heavy-duty 90A alternator in the bus. 90Ax12V = 1080W.

If you assume you need 1/3rd of the alternator capacity to run the bus electrics and air conditioning, etc; that leaves you about 725W to power appliances - probably not enough.

Cash

You're forgetting about the bus batteries in your maths. And the fact that the duty cycle on the laser printer is oh, probably 0.1% of a typical day. Re-do in Amp-hrs and you'll see that there's plenty of energy to go around.

I was talking peak loads. Just like the utility grid, your electrical infrastructure has to be able to carry the instantaneous peaks even though 90% of the time the demand load is far less.

DickRasmussen · **Posted:** Wed Apr 01, 2015 1:21 pm

MikeWhitney wrote:

You're forgetting about the bus batteries in your maths. And the fact that the duty cycle on the laser printer is oh, probably 0.1% of a typical day. Re-do in Amp-hrs and you'll see that there's plenty of energy to go around.

How healthy are the batteries? If the only real change since things worked is battery age that may be the problem.

RickyBeam · **Posted:** Wed Apr 01, 2015 3:47 pm

DickRasmussen wrote:

How healthy are the batteries? If the only real change since things worked is battery age that may be the problem.

Chris replaced them last year after all the "bus won't f'ing start" problems.

I'll take a look at both printers, maybe Friday before heading out for the HPDE. Roger has an 1500/1800 pure sinewave inverter at the shop. I'll bring my meter and measure how much they draw.

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

Jason Mauldin wrote:

Let's go green and use a tablet instead of paper..

Fumbling with a tablet in direct sun to takes notes about raw times, work assignments, and grid assignments is going to be a massive pain. Plus we would need 3 tablets.

At the moment, our "If you don't work you don't get scored runs" policy is on the honors system. Eventually people will figure that out

BriceJohnson · **Joined:** Thu Apr 13, 2006 7:33 am **Posts:** 2230

Alec Moody wrote:

At the moment, our "If you don't work you don't get scored runs" policy is on the honors system. Eventually people will figure that out

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

Scott Johnson · **Posted:** Thu Apr 02, 2015 9:53 am

BriceJohnson wrote:

Alec Moody wrote:

At the moment, our "If you don't work you don't get scored runs" policy is on the honors system. Eventually people will figure that out

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.

David Teague · **Posted:** Thu Apr 02, 2015 10:30 am

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.

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

Scott Johnson wrote:

BriceJohnson wrote:

Alec Moody wrote:

At the moment, our "If you don't work you don't get scored runs" policy is on the honors system. Eventually people will figure that out

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.

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We need a generator or some other fix.

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