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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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

[Joe biebel]

The VSM system is for real, and they are totally stable. We use it exclusively at our club and frankly it simply can't be matched at any price. Our systems use refurbished, pentium-3, small form-factor desktop computers http://picasaweb.google.com/joefence...01453863824370 and large monitors or TVs that are permanently wall mounted, so our cost for the computer, operating system, (television 32" LCD) and VSM module is around $650.00. Obviously, this can be done for a lot less.

If you don't have a laptop you want to use or don't want to transport it all the time, you could get a refurbished laptop with a Windows operating system for about $150.00 plus shipping from a place like www.Cedarpc.com, plus a $150.00 VSM unit and for your $300.00 have a perfect scoring machine. Since everything is modular (unlike a dedicated scoring machine) if a component breaks, you need only replace the component. So far, with 2 years of constant use under our belt, running 4 units, we have yet to have a single failure. I must admit though, that sometimes, when I miss my opponent, I don't get a light.

In my opinion, the beauty of VSM is the "modability" and scalability. You can go cheap and still have all the benefits and extras the software provides or you can go nuts and build something suitable for an olympics final. You can take that same $300.00 core laptop and VSM unit and add to it as time passes. I know Hart is working on a remote control to die for, a second VSM module to act as a repeater light core, LED repeater lights, and eventually sharks with lasers, bwa-ha-ha-ha!

In this case "early adopters" will wonder why everyone else does not already have this as OP mused.

Also, putting a plastic or Lexan cover over the laptop or TV or monitor is probably wise especially if you use the system in a crowded space, so add a few bucks for that as well.

We use our VSMs for foil primarily, but have had three weapon tournaments as well. Also, I have taken the time to give each system it's own distinct sounds. On the 2 large screen TVs the sound is fantastic using the TVs speakers. On the 2 systems using 2 computer monitors in tandem, we have amplified speakers attached. A nice thing about external computer speakers is they usually have a volume control that is highly accessible and easy to control. YRMV.