Assorted Weirdness - I'm Unhittable

[flyingfencer]

Fencing Foil the other night, and experienced some weirdness with touches I have not seen before. My opponent was experiencing some seemingly random problems with touches not lighting on the machine. It generally happened with a strong beat attack or a parry reposte. We were using Favero reels and an Eigertek box. He switched weapons with no effect. We switched sides, no effect, and I switched weapons, no effect. He checked his body cord and found a cut in the cord that could have caused a break, and we said aha, that's it. It was late, and he just called it a night rather than go to the trouble of switching body cords.

Ok, everything's fine I think. Another fencer asks me to do one more bout. He hooks up, and the exact same problem materializes. Any strong contact of blades, and his touch won't light. It generally happens with both of us landing touches, but his light won't go off, his beat attack with my counter-attack, his light doesn't go off; my beat attack with his counter-attack, his light doesn't go off; parry reposte with a remise, no light for him. We checked his tip tape, which was a little worn; so, he switched weapons, same problem. We switched sides same problem. He switched body cords same problem. I didn't try switching my body cord, and we didn't switch strips; since it was late, and the other strips were being taken down.

Maybe fortune is just smiling upon me. I'm now unhittable. : )

[Joe biebel]

(SNIP) I didn't try switching my body cord, and we didn't switch strips; since it was late, and the other strips were being taken down.

Maybe fortune is just smiling upon me. I'm now unhittable. : )

Can I buy your bodycord?

[flyingfencer]

Can I buy your bodycord?

Of course, for the right price.

[the ancient one]

One scenario:

Old scoring machine + sweat+ pistol grip +increased hand pressure = no touch

Check the scoring machine: have your opponent ground his/her lame by holding their bell guard against the lame. Now can you register a hit? If no hit registers you have an old design scoring machine and you can solve the problem. In this case I would suspect that you were wet enough to be close to grounding the weapon and the grounding would occur when you squeezed the grip a little tighter.

Put on a dry glove and/or use an insulated grip.

[flyingfencer]

One scenario:

Old scoring machine + sweat+ pistol grip +increased hand pressure = no touch

Check the scoring machine: have your opponent ground his/her lame by holding their bell guard against the lame. Now can you register a hit? If no hit registers you have an old design scoring machine and you can solve the problem. In this case I would suspect that you were wet enough to be close to grounding the weapon and the grounding would occur when you squeezed the grip a little tighter.

Put on a dry glove and/or use an insulated grip.

In the first bout we actually did talk about sweat being the problem, but we quickly forgot about that when we found the cut in my opponent's body cord. I didn't think about it again after that.

Hmmm.... our Eigertek boxes are at the most four years old. Is that old enough, or is there some issue with Eigertek boxes?

[Joe biebel]

SNIP Eigertek box SNIP

While it's possible that the Eigertek scoring machine is defective, it would definately have "anti-blockage" circuitry. It's not the machine, unless broken.

[neevel]

While it's possible that the Eigertek scoring machine is defective, it would definately have "anti-blockage" circuitry. It's not the machine, unless broken.

Depending on when the Eigertek was purchased and whether it's had any upgrades since- it actually could be the machine. 5 years ago, Eigertek released a 1.1.xx (I forget the subminor revision) firmware version on which anti-blocking was broken (release 1.2 was the fix for this).
So, if you're using an Eigertek with that old firmware and you have an intermittent A-C short in your body cord, your opponent will indeed be unable to register a valid touch on you (the yellow lights would still be on or flickering, indicating an A-C short).

-Dave

[Cookeit]

Maybe fortune is just smiling upon me. I'm now unhittable. : )

Were you wearing a chest protector??

[flyingfencer]

Were you wearing a chest protector??

No chest protector.

We did a little more testing last week with the issue. We were not able to replicate it on the same box initially. The problem returned after fencing a while, which seemed to coincide with the time that it took for us to sweat through our gloves. My grip was insulated, but my opponent's grip was not. I switched to a dry glove, and I couldn't say that I noticed a difference.

We switched to a different manufacturer's machine, and the problem vanished.

We'll be fencing on the same equipment tonight, and I'm going to use a different body cord.

I'll check my body cords tonight and look for an A to C short. It's definitely a combination of things, right machine, body cord, and sweat for the issue to occur.