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vincikai · 03-12-2005, 02:06 PM

http://www.triplette.com/Arms/TCA_index.htm

i am thinking about buying a scoring box. what do you think about this one ??E-33-99. pros and cons?

"FIE Homologated and approved for World Championship use.Fully microprocessor driven. Reprogrammable to accommodate future rule changes. Designed and produced in the USA with the latest computer technology. Exported around the world. Two year warranty against defects."

CvilleFencer · 03-12-2005, 03:59 PM

The short version (because I have a cold and don't feel like typing what has been in other threads, not because I just really want to bash TCA or anything) is that they suck. For the money I think they are the worst scoring box on the market. Some highlights of their suckiness...

1. The power supply is large, clunky and a horrible design. If there is any contact with anything metal while the power supply is plugged in (like the sides of the plug connector or the box itself) it will blow the fuse. If this is going to be in your house where you know the problem that is one thing, but for a club or division where a lot of people are going to be plugging it in and such it is just plain horrible.

2. The wires on the power supply do not stand stress well and will break and crack exposing bare electric wire or causing a failure altogether over a fairly short amount of time.

3. The boxes are just plain finicky, especially for saber. The are instances when the bells on sabers can become targets and on a few occasions for no apparent reason the blades themselves become target. Also they seem to "drop" hits more often than the favero boxes for example.

4. They are not FIE approver, they are "homoglomated" whatever the hell that means. I get pissy when vendors misrepresent their equipment.

5. For the money you can get a better box for less money.

On the plus side the lights are easy to see, the cases are durable and the volume is adjustable, but it is to me more a case of "at least these don't suck as much as the rest of the box" than they are any better than the competition...

I would suggest you check out the Favero boxes. We have them at the club and the division is switching to them. For that matter a lot of the clubs in our division are switching to them. Fairly cheap, well engineered and reliable. They are probably my favorite scoring box. The eclipse and bluesky boxes are nice for smaller clubs as well. I don't like the light placement or the size of the eclipse box and the volume is very quite. The blueskys seem nice, but the lights are weird for me and they are as much or more than the favero so I never saw the point.

If you would not mind picky some of the triplette boxes up used, I bet the division would sell you some pretty cheap! :-)

Zilverzmurfen · 03-12-2005, 04:19 PM

That was a very extensive answer!

I know absolutely nothing about 'Triplette' and have no idea what box you are talking about.

However I think you should submit this to the "Product Review" section, Cville!

esskreemr · 03-12-2005, 05:42 PM

Do a search for Triplette scoring machines on this site. There are plenty of reasons not to buy a Triplette scoring machines until they change their designs. They are problematic at best. Perspiration can cause them to ground out resulting in no touches scored by either fencer. This has happened to me twice on different occassions at different sites on different boxes, both were Triplette...

That's the short answer...

CvilleFencer · 03-12-2005, 05:43 PM

Thanks Zilver! I would put more stuff in the product reviews section, but the last few things I tried to get put in did not show up for a long time so I was not sure if Craig was still maintaining it. If I feel into it I will submit the TCA boxes to be reviewed along with the Favero, but by the time they get put up for people to actually post comments chances are that I will have forgotten about them so someone will have to remind me. That would be a nice feature... if you submit something to be reviewed you are notified when it is ready to have info added. I just might have to crosspost this into the fencing.net improvements thread!

Zilverzmurfen · 03-12-2005, 06:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CvilleFencer

Thanks Zilver! I would put more stuff in the product reviews section, but the last few things I tried to get put in did not show up for a long time so I was not sure if Craig was still maintaining it. If I feel into it I will submit the TCA boxes to be reviewed along with the Favero, but by the time they get put up for people to actually post comments chances are that I will have forgotten about them so someone will have to remind me. That would be a nice feature... if you submit something to be reviewed you are notified when it is ready to have info added. I just might have to crosspost this into the fencing.net improvements thread!

In short: I totally agree!

The Product Review section is a great source for information (as well as actual 'warnings') but the time it takes for the items to turn up there is somewhat incredible.

It took a mere ~6 weeks for my glove review suggestion to turn up. By then I had almost forgotten about it. I had made a note of it on my ToDo-list.

noodle · 03-13-2005, 12:44 AM

the eigertek eclipse boxes are top notch, imho, if you're not looking to spend a lot of cash on a scoring machine. we've had ours for years and years and years, they've taken some beatings, and they're still fine (though i think one of our new timing chips is faulty that we just recieved).

telkanuru · 03-13-2005, 12:54 AM

The Eigertek boxes are nifty insofar as they are small and can be rigged to run off a 9-volt battery, but the Favero boxes are the best I've seen, and I would reccomend them with no hesitation.

Triplette boxes are awful, and that pretty much sums them up.

noodle · 03-13-2005, 01:01 AM

i like the eigertek boxes because they're small, very durable, you can do the battery deal, cheap, you can upgrade them youself, and i can make them play "bicycle built for two" with a special button combo.

but the favero boxes are also solid, though more expensive. depends on your needs, really.

telkanuru · 03-13-2005, 01:06 AM

I'm just a sucker for anything with a remote that small and a built-in clock...

DHCJr · 03-13-2005, 03:54 AM

Both the Favero and the St. George can come with a remote. The remote on the Favero has the advantage of having each remote, Keyed to a particular box. Personally, I do not like the Yellow LED for the White lights on the Favero. The White LED on the St. George are of course a little more expensive, but being an Armorer, I appreciate a difference between the white light and the yellow (grounding) light.

DJ Apostrophe · 03-13-2005, 09:58 AM

DHC, The new favero's (the 05s) actually have a white off target light, that is about a quarter the size of the full colored on target light. Also the Favero remote is much easier to work, just as long as you know a bit of french... The St. George boxes use the same panel of LEDs and just light up different ones for on and off target hits... I do not like this as a director because sometimes out of the corner of your eye you can think the hit is on target, when it is really off...

Both machines can have the remote tied solely to one box.

-w

bwoodward · 03-13-2005, 06:14 PM

I don't know enough about scoring boxes to compare one to another. The only one I have any experience with is the box our club uses, which is a Triplette box. It's been used twice a week for about 5 months, and used at the occasional competition. It has worked perfectly the whole time and no one has treated it with special care. I'm glad we were lucky and got the only Triplette box ever made that actually works.

D+F+P=Hadouken! · 03-13-2005, 06:25 PM

I've seen a triplette box smoke when they turned it on, it was bloody freaky. The eigertek box is better.

vincikai · 03-13-2005, 07:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by D+F+P=Hadouken!

I've seen a triplette box smoke when they turned it on, it was bloody freaky. The eigertek box is better.

xD smoke when its on??

nice

jeffp · 03-20-2005, 01:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vincikai

http://www.triplette.com/Arms/TCA_index.htm

i am thinking about buying a scoring box. what do you think about this one ??E-33-99. pros and cons?

I wouldn't waste my money. I do some repair work for one of the clubs I fence at. They have a TCA machine (probably the same model you ask about) that was acting up. They handed it to me and asked me to do what I could with it.

I looked it over, opened it up, saw nothing obvious, but it was registering off target hits with foil when there were no hits, and when there were on target hits. In addition, there was a nasty problem with the power supply connector being trashed. I looked around for an alternate power supply connector I could use, but in the end I gave up and called Tripplette. They said they'd fix it if I sent it to them. So I did.

When it came back, I knew they'd tried. They'd sent me an entirely new power supply with a new connector. It wasn't going to allow a monkey to insert it backwards anymore. That was the good side. They claimed that they had bench tested it, and that everything had worked fine for them.

I set it up and tried it -- the off target issues happened immediately. So much for their bench testing.

When I took it back to the club, they told me that someone had previously sent it back to TCA for repairs, and it hadn't been fixed in that visit either.

My advice is to forget about TCA gear. If you like the Favero machines, go for them. I like the Eigertek boxes, but that's mostly because one of my clubs has no primary home, so we haul the gear around with us every week. The Eigertek machines simply cannot be beat for convenience in that case.

--jeffp