TCA machine question

[Roach]

Anyone own/use Triplette's 3-weapon club machines. What's god/bad about them?

[rrs]

we have one at our club, which people seem to be 'fairly' happy with. the price is nice and it's a fairly light and small box, but with large enough lights and a loud enough buzzer for club use. we also like the fact that it allows us to run both the old and new timings, and that the programmes can be updated as timings change for no additional cost (though it would be nice not to have to send it back to TCA). we have had no problems using it for foil or epee in a club setting, though we haven't used it for any tournaments yet. we have, however, had problems with the sabre programmes under both the old and new timings - enough to mean that we've essentially relegated it being a 2 weapon box until we can send it back to TCA.

[rsy]

Our club has one TCA club machine. It works fine with only three problems. The first is that it had to be sent back to TCA for upgrade of the chip. The second is the amount of time TCA took to upgrade the chip. The third is a design defect of the power supply (at least on our machine). The power cord must be connected to the machine before the power supply is plugged into the wall and it must not be removed from the machine until the power supply is unplugged from the wall. Reversing the order can short out the power supply brick.

-r

[VorpalCat]

Originally Posted by rsy

Reversing the order can short out the power supply brick.

Good to know -- my husband gave me a TCA scoring machine for my birthday, would hate to short it out the first time we play with it!

[neevel]

I'd look elswhere for a scoring box (Eigertek, Favero, Blue Sky, SG-11 are good options in the same price range). rsy mentioned the power supply problems. Beyond that, Tripplete boxes were withdrawn from use at national tournaments due to a flaw that causes them to not register some fast double touches in sabre correctly. There are a variety of other issues with flaky behavior that I, other armorers, and others on this board have experienced with them. Given the fact that box timings may be still be in flux, the fact that the Eigertek can be upgraded for free and without having to be sent in may make it the best choice for hedging against further changes. The Favero also does not neet to be sent in for F/W updates (like the Eigertek it uses socketed firmware), but the F/W is not free. The Blue Sky offers free F/W updated, but I don't know if it uses a socketed chip or not. The SG-11's F/W is stored in flash memory, and needs to be sent in to Blue Gauntlet (Ted Li, actually) for updates.

-Dave

[kathywc]

Actually, Dave, we tested the new model of Triplette's machine pretty heavily behind the table in Richmond and the scoring problem has been fixed. As for the rest of the quirks....well.....I think the boxes are haunted....yeah, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

kathy wc

[Roach]

Two people say the sabre is iffy, one person says the power supplies are odd, and the other person says the boxes are haunted? Nope, I am not liking these answers, especially since i am looking to buy for the Division.

[neevel]

Originally Posted by kathywc

Actually, Dave, we tested the new model of Triplette's machine pretty heavily behind the table in Richmond and the scoring problem has been fixed. As for the rest of the quirks....well.....I think the boxes are haunted....yeah, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

kathy wc

Must be some pretty strong ghosts, if they can make a microprocessor box shock you like an old relay box .

[SJCFU#2]

Originally Posted by Roach

Two people say the sabre is iffy, one person says the power supplies are odd, and the other person says the boxes are haunted? Nope, I am not liking these answers, especially since i am looking to buy for the Division.

Regarding the various ghosts and other peculiarities - suffice to say that TCA machines do not have the best of reputations. Even if Tripplette has suceeded in fixing all of these problems it will take a long time to rehabilitate their reputation.

One problem that is well understod is the tendancy to blow-out power supplies. TCA machines use a four-pin DIN plug to connect the AC power supply to the machine (two of the pins are connected to one wire, the other two pins to the other wire). It is very easy to brush the pins against the metal parts of the socket when pluging into the machine, shorting the pins together. If the power supply is energized at the time the resulting current surge will blow the fuse on the power supply, leaving you with a useless machine until you take apart the power supply and replace the fuse.

Tripplette's solution is to not energize the power supply (i.e. plug it into the wall) until after everything else is plugged in, and to deenergize it (i.e. unplug it from the wall) before unplugging anything else.

The two things that I cannot understand are: (1) Why use a four-pin DIN? They aren't the sort of thing you can find at Radio Shack (or even many "real" electronic supply houses) and the entire problem could have been avoided by choosing a different type of plug. (2) Why use an AC power supply when the first thing the machine does is convert the AC to DC?

[CvilleFencer]

Originally Posted by Roach

Two people say the sabre is iffy, one person says the power supplies are odd, and the other person says the boxes are haunted? Nope, I am not liking these answers, especially since i am looking to buy for the Division.

Do not buy TCA boxes for your division. We have been struggling with the TCA boxes for a few years now and they are horrible. The saber fencers hate them as the sometimes registers parries as touchs, the refs hate them because they have to listen to the saber fencers complain, everyone hates them because someone usually manages to blows a power supply while "helping", and if all that were not enough they have not held up very well, even inside their little hardened cases. I would say that TCA machines are the absolute worst out of all the ones I have seen and used. Our Division is switching over to Favero boxes and reels and so far we are very very happy with them.

[SJCFU#2]

TCA club machines don't even have the hardened case - that seems to be one of the features used to justify the cost of the more expensive model.