Which Track Day Data Logger

It's my birthday soon and the missus asked what I wanted as a present. I told her I'd like something like a vbox to log my future track days.

We had a quick look on their website and saw the price. After pointing at the screen and laughing at the ridiculous price, we closed the laptop and got on with our day.

 

So given that she's understandably not keen on blowing over a grand on something that's worth no more than £300, what are my options?

Perf box will be perfect for you.

Edited by chris_uk, 17 June 2013 - 03:56 PM.

If you want something accurate with video you have to spend a fair bit unfortunately. If you don't need video a performance box is and excellent piece of kit.

Sadly that is what they cost whatever you buy.

 

There is an app for I-thing and android available which I haven't tried which may be an option.

depends if laptimes are important to you , or you just want a video keepsake of the trackday

Video is a must have, so something like performance box isn't really an option.

 

The Go Pro camera looks pretty good, and something like Track Vision would overlay the data, but where does the data come from? I'm guessing there's a 3rd piece of equipment needed here?

If you've got an Android phone, download the Torque app from the Play Store and buy a £10 bluetooth OBD2 interface and you can pull out most of the engine data that you'll want from the ECU, plus GPS from the phone (and better yet, buy a 10hz bluetooth GPS receiver and pair that up as well for better accuracy over a phones 1hz at best GPS). You can even use the phone to do the video, if you can mount it properly. Not sure how well Torque Pro handles the video and overlay side of things but if it still can't actually embed the overlay over recorded video (it used to have to record them separately as the Android API didn't allow on the fly re-encoding), don't get mugged by buying TrackVision, get RaceRender instead.

 

If you've got a twatphone, Harry's Lap Timer does similar (and definitely will encode the overlay over the video). You'll need to get a wifi OBD2 interface as Apple are Apple and you'll probably want to get a wifi GPS receiver (Racelogic do a 20hz one specifically for use with Harry's laptimer if you want to pay for the privilege).

 

If you've got a Windows Phone, you're currently sh!t out of luck for cheap solutions, as far as I know.

 

After that, you're into the world of proper dataloggers to log additional non-standard sensors along with maybe OBD data, if you find a logger that supports it (most are CAN based).

 

This is data from my PerformanceBox with the optional Micro Input Module that supports some extra sensors (that weren't actually fitted the last time I bothered recording anything) plus RPM from the Stack and a cheap Kodak Zi8 pocket camcorder and I created the overlay in RaceRender.

 

 

 

 

I'd quite like to try the phone logging software, but I have a Windows Phone and nothing seems to be available for that yet.

 

So after a but more research, it looks like I could do this in stages.

I can start with a GoPro camera and use that without any overlay next I can get myself a performance box for the data logging which will log the data to flash card. Finally get myself some software like TrackVision of DashWare to take the data from the PerformanceBox and the video from the GoPro and create the overlay.

 

With ebay's help, I can probably keep this to around £300

Buy the £55 Samsung Galaxy Ace in the For Sale section and just use it for data logging.

 

ETA: I kept a Nokia N95 for years in the car to only use for logging with RaceChrono. RaceChrono might also be an option for you if you end up with an Android phone. He binned Nokia and moved to Android and it's excellent for lap timing and line analysis (and you can output to Racelogic Circuit Tools and Race Render if you want) but he's not got OBD2 or video working again yet.

Edited by techieboy, 17 June 2013 - 04:54 PM.

Have you looked at the Aim SmartyCam? Might be worth considering. The problem with the low cost options is they are not built around driver analysis software. Aim has decent analysis sw which means you can use it to really learn rather than just have a momento. The high end video options are expensive but they do reduce the faffing of syncing up vid as they are seamless and quick. If you are ok to put the time in then it works, if not then you'll have a lot of useless data. You can get a second hand Pbox for 250.

GoPro with Racechrono for Android along with external Qstartz External 10mhz Gps. Use with Racerender gives me this.. Soon the software will also be able to log obd as well, so throttle position rpm etc..

Ive got Alap HD for my Android connected to blue tooth OBD. Looks the part but im yet to use it in anger.

Buy the £55 Samsung Galaxy Ace in the For Sale section and just use it for data logging.

 

ETA: I kept a Nokia N95 for years in the car to only use for logging with RaceChrono. RaceChrono might also be an option for you if you end up with an Android phone. He binned Nokia and moved to Android and it's excellent for lap timing and line analysis (and you can output to Racelogic Circuit Tools and Race Render if you want) but he's not got OBD2 or video working again yet.

 

I'm using my S Galaxy Y just to test out torque, its a bit underpowered, small screen, 2MP.

 

So would the SGA be a good video+OBD logger ?

So would the SGA be a good video+OBD logger ?

 

A quick look at the specs of it, say it's probably not ideal for doing both - would be fine just logging though. T'is a bit underpowered in comparison to newer phones and an old version of Android which might limit app choices (though it can be upgraded to the Cyanogenmod version of Android), so I wouldn't bother. 

thats what put me off , ancient android version. current phone is only 2.3.6

Orange are selling the HTC Desire C at a knockdown PAYG phone. It's much more current but no idea on the performance of it.

GoPro with Racechrono for Android along with external Qstartz External 10mhz Gps. Use with Racerender gives me this.. Soon the software will also be able to log obd as well, so throttle position rpm etc..

 

 

That's fantastic Jason!  Really great budget way to achieve a quality end result!  The GoPro really is great!  I wish I could come up with a way of upgrading the crapy bullet cams on my VBox with GoPro units!