Box timing question

[gofence]

Two quick questions:

1. What should be the correct timing for registering hits on a foil scoring box - i.e. the time between registering the first hit and the point at which no subsequent hit from the other fencer is registered. I dont know the technical term for this "time window" but I hope people can understand what I an trying to get at. Somebody told me that there have been a number of changes in the rules for this timing over the years and I am keen to know what the current timing should be.

2. My club has a number of quite old boxes which have never been adjusted for changes in the foil timing rules - is it worth sending them back to the manufacturer to get them adjusted? How much difference does it make? We frequently lend the boxes out for competitions.

[DHCJr]

The time after which no other touches can register is between 700 and 800 milliseconds. Another big change is when a light is registered on one side, no other lights on that side can register. Most likely your boxes if someone gets a off-target and then an on-target, both lights come on. This was one of those rules to make it easier for our audiance.

As far as your second question, that you would have to answer yourself. There are so many variables, what type, how old, what your finances are like.

[gofence]

Hi DHCJr,
Thanks for the answer - I eventually found the the answer in my faithfull copy of the British fencing rules for competitions. So thanks for confirming that my copy does appear to be up to date.

If the boxes were just used for the club we probably wouldnt bother getting them adjusted but as we frequently lend them out for regional competitions I am wondering whether we should get them changed. There seems a big difference between their current timing (say approx >1sec) and the 700 millisecs that they should be - wouldnt this potentially have a big influence on competition results?

[neevel]

From use of a box with the even shorter (350 ms) lockout time that the FIE has been giving some thought to for the last few years, it really doesn't make all that much difference-- the main effect is to prevent late remises from registering, which doesn't affect outcome of the bout, but could be considered as making things easier for uninformed spectators.

If any boxes you have are upgradeable, it shouldn't be necessary to send them in-- they generally use a socketed IC for the firmware, so you just get a new chip and swap it out for the old one (taking the usual precautions about static electricity, of course).

(As a note, the 350 ms lockout time is still just a proposal being bandied about by the FIE-- whether or not it'll ever come to pass remains, so far as I know, undetermined).

-Dave