Best college club scoring machine of all time, or a poor-quality hack?

[GTBiofencer]

So, I just heard of the Virtual Scoring Machine.

For less than $150, I can get what is essentially a highly accurate, and extremely information-rich scoring machine, which would cost me three or four times as much for less information and customization through a Favero or other system.

So what's the drawback? I've heard murmurings of potential grounding issues through USB ports. Is this a big deal... the only deal? I'm literally drooling over this, as we can pick up 3 or 4 of these, and only have to shell out real money for reels, which, given time, we could patch together our own for less as well.

I want negative feedback. Seriously, is this too good to be true? Why isn't everyone talking about it?

Edit: I promptly discovered the search feature and proceeded to find 5 pages full of discussion buried a few pages down. Still... anyone want to summarize? :P

[noodle]

virtual scoring machine requires a computer to run on. so its actual cost is more than $150.

[GTBiofencer]

I go to a college that requires everyone entering undergraduate to purchase a desktop or laptop with certain minimum requirements. I do not know anyone who does not have a computer, let alone one older than 3 years.

[noodle]

Originally Posted by GTBiofencer

I go to a college that requires everyone entering undergraduate to purchase a desktop or laptop with certain minimum requirements. I do not know anyone who does not have a computer, let alone one older than 3 years.

thats fine, if you want to drag your desktop or laptop to every practice and have it be in the line of fire, possibly getting slapped around a bit for each practice.

[K O'N]

Originally Posted by GTBiofencer

So, I just heard of the Virtual Scoring Machine.

For less than $150, I can get what is essentially a highly accurate, and extremely information-rich scoring machine, which would cost me three or four times as much for less information and customization through a Favero or other system.

So what's the drawback? I've heard murmurings of potential grounding issues through USB ports. Is this a big deal... the only deal? I'm literally drooling over this, as we can pick up 3 or 4 of these, and only have to shell out real money for reels, which, given time, we could patch together our own for less as well.

I want negative feedback. Seriously, is this too good to be true? Why isn't everyone talking about it?

Edit: I promptly discovered the search feature and proceeded to find 5 pages full of discussion buried a few pages down. Still... anyone want to summarize? :P

I've bought four of them. They're fine, and complaints are trivial (caveat; I only use them for epee, ask someone else about f/s).

The stock beep noise is too quiet, even with volume on high, even with external speakers. There's another buzz that's ok, but it would be nice to have a larger menu of 'serious' beep and buzz noises. I'm going to install some different wav files.

I'd like USB repeater lights, even if externally powered, that would be nice.

You probably do need external speakers, but that's cheap and easy.

Really, trivial complaints. They're a great deal.

If you're part of a carry-your-laptop-everywhere culture using your school laptop may work for you. If not, put up some signs on campus asking for "old laptops for the fencing club, will pay $40, anything that boots, says Pentium and has a USB port is ok"; I got several for free in a week. Don't neglect the humanities hallway. CS people use old laptops to a disgraceful extent, you want someone in the history department who has a bunch of crap clogging up a PII and will give it to you so he doesn't have to mess with it anymore; you wipe the hd and install XP and VSM and Robert's your mother's brother.

Really, it's a very good deal. And when new timings come out it will be an even better deal.

Regarding reels, ask Mr Hart about the v-reel thing, and look here:

http://brazosportfencing.pbworks.com/Bungee-reels

and decide if maybe one of them won't work better for you than real reels.

Part of bungee reels working ok is setting it up in a sensible way; I have a roll-out cart that has two VSM boxes back to back on top. I roll the cart out, lock the wheels, string the bungees, run an extension, power up the boxes and have two strips ready to fence in ten minutes. The entire setup for two strips was less than $350.

K O'N

[Bazul]

It looks quite good on paper. And even old computers will have a close to 1ms temporal resolution. Another interesting aspect of this system is that you can hook up your computer to a projector a show off the score as a big display, on a wall or screen. Should be great for local tournaments. My biggest concerne would be durability, not accuracy. Are the connectors robust? How shockproof is the box?

[Insipiens]

Originally Posted by K O'N

I've bought four of them. They're fine, and complaints are trivial (caveat; I only use them for epee, ask someone else about f/s).
If you're part of a carry-your-laptop-everywhere culture using your school laptop may work for you. If not, put up some signs on campus asking for "old laptops for the fencing club, will pay $40, anything that boots, says Pentium and has a USB port is ok"; I got several for free in a week. Don't neglect the humanities hallway. CS people use old laptops to a disgraceful extent, you want someone in the history department who has a bunch of crap clogging up a PII and will give it to you so he doesn't have to mess with it anymore; you wipe the hd and install XP and VSM and Robert's your mother's brother.

All of that sounds great. But just how much is the license for XP that you are installing on these cast-off laptops and can you still buy it?

[K O'N]

Originally Posted by Insipiens

All of that sounds great. But just how much is the license for XP that you are installing on these cast-off laptops and can you still buy it?

I must confess that I get an XP disk free from the college wherein I am employed for all my home machines, so I use that. VM will run on Win 98, so if I hadn't had the XP disk I think I have an old 98 disk lying around somewhere. If you don't have any of that ask around, surely you know someone with a Windows disk you can borrow.

K O'N

[K O'N]

Originally Posted by Bazul

It looks quite good on paper. And even old computers will have a close to 1ms temporal resolution. Another interesting aspect of this system is that you can hook up your computer to a projector a show off the score as a big display, on a wall or screen. Should be great for local tournaments. My biggest concerne would be durability, not accuracy. Are the connectors robust? How shockproof is the box?

Mr Hart can tell us for sure, but I think the timing issues are handled in the box that plugs into the USB port, not in the laptop itself. Windows is pretty bad at realtime stuff like that, I think.

The plugins and the box seem very sturdy to me. The USB plug tends to get wiggled about when you're plugging stuff in and unplugging it, which worried me since I had a USB go bad on my home laptop, so I ziptied everything down and I leave the cords plugged into the box now, rather than unplugging them every time I tear down.

K O'N