Here's a head's up for a Kickstarter campaign that starts next month. Check out Dropgage. I think the Kickstarter discount is at least 20%

GPS
temp
altimeter
timecode
PLUG N' PLAY

--no batteries needed
--no SD car needed

If you've got a GoPro, check it out!

 

10Hz gps is good. But you wont get good accelerometer data from a car with the accelerometer on the gopro mount.

 

To an extent, but you will be getting better data than just the GoPro! And as long as the data is repeatable and consistent, then you can compare it. That's the key.

Temp, altitude & GPS should be spot on. G-meter may be off, but you'd be surprised (maybe not) at the amount of smoothing that goes on with that meter, and even the effect that the g-meter chip has in relation to the ground to accuracy--it loses accuracy for every degree that it's not parallel with the ground.

 

I was hoping this would be more at the sophisticated DAQ level, but it seems more like a cool thing for the enthusiast. The data this gathers is certainly useful, but could be better. 10Hz GPS is good, but we use minimum of 100Hz. For acceleration to be useful, it must be placed at the CG (not so good for taking video there), and on a rigid mount. The fact that it needs a lot of smoothing is bad.

It's certainly cool, and at the right price would certainly be worth it.

 

This is consumer/enthusiast, not Motec, and will be priced that way. The cool part is that the data is "drag n' drop", and everything has a satellite time stamp so multiple videos can be synced. Bill Price is a producer/director, and will actually use these functions in professional shots and editing...stuff the rest of us may not use.

I know that they've been improving the GPS satellites, but I think (NOT SURE) the standard signal as it comes down from the satellites has been at 5Hz, so any rating above that is generally going to extrapolate the location. There's a new set of satellites going up now that will make the GPS signal much more accurate, based on the speed of the signal and the ability to account for slight changes in the signal from the atmosphere by using dual signals.

 

It needs to be under $200 I think. With the racecapture pro I can have it autostart my gopros so the video is synched and then just drag and drop combine them with race renderer and get real data from a real datalogger.

 

I think it might be $50 less than that, but I don't even know the final price. Should be good. I also know that there's a way that the GoPro can be turned on--I just don't know if Bill knows how to do it yet. If not, I'll clue him in so auto-start can be added to the feature set.

 

You can either turn it on with blue tooth or with the correct pin on the rear connector that the accessory packs go into.

 

Thank you Cord for the support. LOTS of traffic coming into dropgage.com since you posted this so I had to folow the links back to see for myself. Imagine my surprise to find that I have a miataturbo.net userID leftover from my days as a Monster Miata owner. I must have trolled this forum a million times while I was attempting California BAR certification. Got it but I'll never get that year of my life back.

@Leafy - we're shooting for a $99 Kickstarter launch.

@acedeuce802 - 100hz would be amazing but we're hoping to find an audience with people who just want to easily add solid dynamic data to the camera they're already using and make it less expensive than a race weekend worth of brake pads.

-Bill

 

This thing looks great; attractive price too. Any way to integrate lap timing? If so this is a slam dunk.

 

I don't think lap timing will be a problem. All of the processing for the heads up display is done via plug-in or our stand alone software. If someone is going to be on a track in Southern California this weekend I'd be happy to come shoot and render out a video with lap times.