Hot Wheels Race Timer V3 // Make a die-cast DRAG RACE Timer // ET, Speed Trap & Awards WINNER

Hot Wheels (Die Cast) Finish Line Race Timer Version 3.
You can Simulate a real 1/4 mile drag race!
How to build a Hot Wheels Race Timer using a Arduino project board.
This timer will display the over all race time of both cars, who is the winner and speed at the finish line. Interesting to see that fastest car doesn't necessarily win!
Displays to a 1000s of a second!
Free plans!
Details:
Wiring details: drive.google.c...
Code: drive.google.c...
How to wire the finish line: drive.google.c...
LCD Library(s): github.com/mar...
How to uploaded a new Library file to IDE: • Arduino Libraries! How...
Pull-up resistor info: learn.sparkfun...
LCD Screen: www.amazon.ca/... (Get the I2C board as well)
IR LED's: www.amazon.ca/...
Arduino Uno: www.amazon.ca/...
About This Channel:
This channel has a wide variety of content. I’m interested in many things and topics. I create video's on things I like and what I feel my subscribers would like as well.
This channel is basically about two things:
1.) Show you how to MAKE things, FIX things, TIPS on how to do things and to give you IDEA'S on how to make your life a bit easier! I encourage you to use your hands the to learn something new!
2.) People say I do fun and interesting things and have interesting hobbies. I like to share that with you and I hope this inspires you to do things and to get out there as well!
Thanks for stopping by. I’d appreciate if you subscribe, you never know what video may inspire you!
Disclaimer: Some of this links go to my website and some are affiliate links where I’ll earn a small commission if you make a purchase at no additional cost to you.

[@MikeFreda]

2020 Treasure Hunt Drag Race Tournament: kzbin.info/www/bejne/q6LahouabJeIZsU

[@theultimatewelder]

Love all your versions of the race timer for hot wheels racing. I would like to convert this setup for slot car drag racing. Looking forward to version 4 with the printer for time slips. Great work and great ideas.

[@MikeFreda]

Thanks for commenting. This timer would work with slot cars. You could even adapt a lap counter as well. That wouldn’t be hard to program using the IR sensors. Cheers n

[@detourexplore6615]

This was the highlight of my 2020! Epic!

[@CobabeCreative]

Any chance you could provide a code for a 4 lane version with out the speed trap? I love your projects, just got my start gate built. Awesome design!

[@MikeFreda]

That’s basically version 2. Adding additional lanes is fairly easy. Just look at the code and add lane 3 and 4 variables and subroutines. Cheers.

[@mlrockytop]

Im new to all of this ( boards and program side of things) Thanks for the info and helping others out on how to build a set up!! I was wonder if some how you can hook it up to a tv that is pc ready rather then to the small 4x20 dig read out?? Any help, info or tips would be greatly appreciated!!!!

[@MikeFreda]

Thanks for the comments. Yes, you can get larger OLED screens. You can also video out to a TV screen. It required a couple resistor and a patch cable. You also need to install the Arduino TVout library. I have a new version of my timer I’m working on I may give the TV screen a try.

[@danielsorrell3089]

Awesome of you to share your hard work! Looking forward to that V4. Maybe a V5 with 6 lanes?

[@MikeFreda]

Version 3.1 was just made. Lol. Look at my Treasure Hunt race video. It uses 2 small OLED screens. Version 4 will have a printer for run slips. That’s it, I promise! Lol.

[@gelopsycho]

was able to do it laready man!! thanks!! woohooo!!!! its time!!! LETS GO!!!

[@deanstout1302]

I'm a college student doing this project for a class but I am looking to add on to the starting procedure. Last year another student built a pro tree simulator for the auto shop class to play with and it has two lanes worth of lights with a push button trigger and lcd readout for reaction time. I would like to split the lanes to start with two separate micro switches that would be triggered by a servo or solenoid that is triggered by the push of a button on the reaction time simulator. The start tree is also ran by an UNO so other than messing with a separate power supply for solenoids they should be able to tie together pretty well. Do you have any advice on modifying your code to have separate starts for the E/T while still using the same set up you've created for the end of the track?

[@MikeFreda]

Thanks for commenting. You are not the first person to ask me this sort of question. The short answer is yes, the program can be easily modified with two micro switches and light tree. You would also require two starting handles, one for each lane. I was actually planning to do that. You would also need a red light for a false start and add a reaction time variable to the code. Another option would be to use another set of IR sensors to start the timer rather than the micro switches. They would react faster. You just need to add a start time variable for each lane and figure out false starts. This program has a lot of flexibility. What I would do is just write a start code sequence and hardware first. Get that working then graph that onto my code. Cheers.

[@spolik8428]

i made the Version 2 timer and works great, i love how accurate it is.. but is there a way to make the same timer with using 2 smaller lcd screens? like a screen on top of each lane?

[@MikeFreda]

Thanks for you comment. Yes, I have done that and it works great. The 2nd LCD just needs a different address. Most LCD displays have a small jumper on the back that allows you to change its address or order a screen that has a different address from the factory (this may be a bit of a crap shot) You just have to call/code the other screen address in the program. Have a look at my hotwheels playlist, I have modified V3 timer to use two OLED screens. Cheers.

[@mlrockytop]

I would like to fine tune (weight location) in my cars and would like to have 2 speed traps one at the bottom of the hill and one at the finish line. Im not sure on program coding yet as Im trying to learn coding now in my free time as well as what you need for all the hardware to have things work together. Can you help me out a bit if this is something possible to do? Thanks in advance!!

[@MikeFreda]

Yes, this can be done. Just need an additional set of sensor (emitters and receivers) The code would have to be rewritten quite a bit. What you could also do is just make a separate stand alone timer/gate system and have the sensors at the top and the bottom of the ramp and have it just read the times with our doing any race win calculations. That would be pretty easy to accomplish.

[@rdcustomdiecast]

Will this work for a 6 lane strip using of course 6 sensors and adding the code for the additional 4 lanes

[@MikeFreda]

Yes, this is possible. You may need to point them down and drill a small hole in the track for the sensor to make it a tight installation. You would really need to keep track of the lanes when building and programming.

[@gxmod4621]

Hi Mike, I need some help. I just finished building this and it worked perfectly at first. Once I took the // out to convert to MPH, I started having an issue on the display. If I have the faster car in lane one, the led above lane one will light and the display will show lane 1 as the winner with the ET, SP correct, however, the lane 2 will show the correct ET, but SP will be over 130k MPH. If I have the faster car in lane 2, the light will light above lane 2 as it should, it shows a correct ET, but the SP displays 0.00 MPH. Lane 1 shows correct information all the time regardless of whether its the faster car or not. I initially thought maybe the issue was the MPH conversion part of the code, so I put the // back in the keep it as Kmh. After changing back to the original code, Lane 1 still shows correct information, and Lane 2 still has the same issues, just the SP shows like 220k Kmh. I have tested my sensors and they are working properly. I have also re-downloaded the original code and uploaded it to the Arduino and still get the same results. Any thoughts or suggestions would help. Thank you!

[@MikeFreda]

It's hard for me to with not knowing what sensores you used or how it is wired up. Did you use the exact IR emitters and receivers? Did you use the same resistors? I suspect you have a wiring issue with the speed trap sensor. If I were you, I'd back track and run a simple program to test each sensor individually through the monitor. That should be pretty simple to rewire. When I built this I started simple and small and slowly worked to this version 3/4 . Going right to version 3 can be a daunting task. Cheers.

[@gelopsycho]

thanks brotha!!! :D waiting for my other poarts to build this!! :D stay safe!

[@MRNYCALIVE]

Hi Mike, i just sent you an email about this timer. great video and its exactly what i need for my drag setup.

[@Stanman121]

Hi. Thank you for these uploads. I recently took on a huge project. I made a 1/64 scale quarter mile track with Staging handheld button and footswitch for solenoid release. Your finish gate (just LED indication works great) I now realize I have to incorporate timing. From solenoid release to finish gate. The code works but it keeps adding the time since LED winner switched off. I do believe this is since I use footswitch - in effect closing the gate - right after the trigger. How can I remove the "reset" or let the time starts as soon as I press the footswitch and then after a winning late it stops counting time and await until the foot switch is pressed again. I would surely appreciate if you could perhaps hint me in the right direction. I am novice with coding and so many have helped me , such as the christmas tree stuff and so on. Such a great community. I have a video of my track so far on my channel

[@Stanman121]

Hi. Pardon. I loaded it my other one kzbin.info/www/bejne/jaqumYqEhNmfras

[@MikeFreda]

Hello, thanks for commenting. Yes, the reset is activated when the start gate switch is re-engaged. You can remove it from that sub-routine but you will need a way to reset the times. You can add a dedicated momentary reset switch. (high/low) and whenever that switch is pressed the times are reset or put the reset function at the end of the program after the race is over and the times are displayed. You could add a 10-15 sec delay, Reset, then the track is ready to race again. If you don't mind waiting, I'd just put the reset function it at the end. That would be the easiest. cheers.

[@Stanman121]

@@MikeFreda very kind of you to reply. I'm so silly. I'm actually working on the V2 one. (mistakingly commented here being 1am ;) I'll comment on the correct vid

[@MikeFreda]

No worries. That part of the code is the same. Ver 3 just has the speed trap.

[@juanrodriguez4672]

How much for thr finishing lane

[@MikeFreda]

Probably cost around $40 for all the parts + the time to make it. I don’t really make them for sale but I still have to one in the video. Message me if interested. Email addy in the about section of my page.

[@toddsaunders5814]

Will you have any version 3 to sell? Or version 4 when complete?

[@MikeFreda]

No, not really. As much as I would like to offer it for sale the “support” of a device like this would be hard for me to accommodate. I do have the version 2 one from the video available but you would also need some Sort of start gate to make it all work correctly.

[@DanielOBrien_Argentiumfox]

Mike or anyone here, I need some help please. In the code you have while defining the LCD, 'POSITIVE' is not declared in the scope under the LiquidCrystal_I2C Library. I checked my LCD using the scanner and determined it was a 0x27. Any ideas how to fix this? Everything else seems to be working. Maybe for your Version 4, you could update the code?

[@DanielOBrien_Argentiumfox]

I missed you had already responded to someone with the same problem. Not sure the cause, I played around a bit, removing and reinstalling libraries, and also changed the LCD to (0x27, 20, 4), and I got it to work after I commented out the I2CIO & LCD libraries. I truly have no idea how that worked. ?? Either way, perhaps an updated code would still be worth it for your next version since these older libraries are so buggy. Thanks for the great content!

[@DanielOBrien_Argentiumfox]

Yeah, it's still not working. Nothing is coming through on the LCD screen even though it let me download the code to the Arduino. Help?

[@MikeFreda]

Sorry to hear you are having issues. Very odd that its not working. I suspect the Library file may be corrupt. To narrow things down I would suggest just making a test code to figure out how to get your LCD to work.... Something like "Hello world" code. Once you figure out that library, just use that one. As for the LCD not actually working, the dim/brightness setting could be off or you have two of the wires mixed up. Cheers

[@seanbrown5222]

We have tried your link to the code and wiring diagrams and they do not seem to work,can you help us with this? thank you

[@MikeFreda]

The links for me. Try updating your browser or try a different one. Some people say the links don’t works from a phone for whatever reason. If not, please send me an email and I can email them to you. Email link in the about section of my page.

[@jodybrown7632]

@@MikeFreda Thanks Mike, we managed to get the code but it is erring on us with a message POSITIVE was not declared in this scope, I suspect it is the LiquidCrystal_I2C library we are using but not sure what the solution is

[@johnmarks6924]

Mike, I see in the video and in the parts list you have an Arduino Uno R3 but in the wiring is shows a Nano board. A friend of mine started to build this speed trap and got frustrated so I stepped in. I have this wired to a Nano but there seems to give me an error 'POSITIVE' was not declared in this scope. When stating the Hex address for the screen. I am quite green in the Arduino world and this style of programming but all of the other components are what you have listed. I am not getting any library waning's so I should have all of the correct libraries installed. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, even if i need to update from the Nano to the Arduino Uno R3.

[@MikeFreda]

These boards are all interchangeable. They all work the same. You just have to make sure you use the correct bootloader for your board. I copied that exact code and installed it into the IDE and is works fine for me. Check to see if your LCD library is the right one and matches the LCD command. Upload a current LCD library file for your screen. If you are using I2C connections, you can also use this code instead: >>> LiquidCrystal_I2C lcd(0x27, 16, 2); You need to make sure your library matches this call out command. You can get the files at Github. Check the LCD address (i.e. 0x27). You can use another program to obtain I2C addresses. If you load a new library file, you may need to change the library name called out at the top of the code to match. What you could also do is just make a simple program and code to see if you can actually write to the LCD screen you have. I hope that helps!?

[@johnmarks6924]

@@MikeFreda Helps a lot I will double check the library. I did run the other program for the address and it is (0x27) but I will double check. I did quickly type in your call >>> LiquidCrystal_I2C lcd(0x27, 16, 2); and ended up with a different error>>>> error: no matching function for call to setup()::LiquidCrystal_I2C::LiquidCrystal_I2C(int, int, int)' I think this is the library. I will post what I find in case any one else makes my mistakes, :-) Thanks again for your time.

[@LeviCHyatt]

Mike can you please review the parts that I have selected and let me know if I have chosen the correct parts. (1- ) SunFounder IIC/I2C/TWI Serial 2004/20x4 LCD Module Shield Compatible with Arduino Uno/Mega (2- ) XLX 50 pairs 5mm 940nm Infrared Diode LED Emission and IR Receiver for ArduinoXLX 50 pairs 5mm 940nm Infrared Diode LED Emission and IR Receiver for Arduino (3-)Arduino UNO REV3 [A000066] Thanks Kenneth

[@MikeFreda]

Hi, I’m not familiar with those brands but the LCD and UNO should work just fine. The IR LEDs may work but you really don’t need 50 of them. The threshold settings I used may need to be adjusted a bit due to the possibility of different sensitivities. Cheers.

[@UWSDiecastStreetRacing]

Awesome

[@Afterdarkperformance]

Is there a way to make it work for rc drag racing

[@MikeFreda]

Thanks for commenting. Many people have asked me this already. In sort... yes/no... The general concept on how it works can be adapted to RC racing BUT, the distances involved will require someway to overcome the voltage drop between the two sensors (start and finish) High Quality Cat 5 cable "may" work but then you have this long piece of cable running down the track. You may be able to go Bluetooth but you will have to experiment on that. I was thinking of making one for RC use but a few people have already done that so there is no sense to reinvent the wheel. It would be a lot of effort on my part. To do it right, you would need staging, IR beam for the start line, False starts, speed trap and finish line. The starting circuit would be a chore to R&D. Cheers.

[@Afterdarkperformance]

Thanks for your help

[@Freedom_DieCast_Drag_Racing]

Is there a way to make this work with two displays, one for each lane?

[@MikeFreda]

Yes, the screens just need a seperate address. On most screens you can re-solder the address pins. That's what did on the Hot Wheel 2020 Treasure Hunt Drag Race setup.

[@BrensRCracing]

Very cool Mike

[@Hipnote891]

Very inspired!!!

[@MikeFreda]

Fantastic! Cheers.

[@afrizaladisaputra969]

hi, your video is very awesome, can you help me .. i am making a lecture assignment, my lecturer asked for the distance between one sensor (sensor start) and the other sensor (finish) to be connected via a wireless network, is it possible? (assuming the distance is more than 1km)

[@MikeFreda]

Yes, you could use Arduino Bluetooth module. However, 1km will be hard to do. I have no clue how you would do that other than using some sort of FM/UHF/VHF transmitter... but I do not know how to wire that.

[@xxjonathan117]

hi Mike, im developing a code for my track, can you help me? can i send you my code? im having problem with the accuracy, i got ir module 3 pin with one pin for signal out, when the car pass too fast is not precise, sometime only read 1 sensor module, whe pass a little slow read both, can i send you me code? any email?

[@MikeFreda]

Hello, if you didn't use the same components I used it's hard for me to de-bug what is going on. I can look at the code but without having your sensors to test I can't really determine what the issue is. When I was building mine I ran into the same issue. I had my sensor side-by-side and fast cars would not trigger. When I moved the sensors to make the cars "break" the beam it worked. I had to play with the trip setting. What I suspect is happening to you is that your threshold is too low. Slowly change the sensorThresh higher and higher until it just reads the fastest car. What I would also do is make a simple readout program and print the computer screen on what values you see when a car passes through the sensors. I hope that helps?

[@xxjonathan117]

@@MikeFreda thanks! I will verify, i uploaded the problem i got in this link, some times do not read 1 sensor , inconsistent reading. kzbin.infoiajJ8-yBlks?si=unsJLATUbSF48xgB

[@MikeFreda]

Hi, the link does not work. Regards

[@xxjonathan117]

@@MikeFreda sorry, try now

[@MikeFreda]

Hi, you have a couple issues. That style of IR LED's mounted in a circuit board work on reflection. The faster you go the more less time it has to reflect. You could try to adjust the sensitivity. The best thing to do is relocate the IR LED emitter (the clear one) to oppose the IR Receiver. Then you are actually breaking the beam. You will have to reverse the code from low/high to high/low threshold. Also, your LED time display is always running. That takes CPU time and slows down the program to constantly writing and rewriting the time to the LED display. Only display the time when the race is over. I ran into these same issues. Took me a bit to figure it out.

[@juanrodriguez4672]

price

[@TroyBest]

code link is dead?!

[@MikeFreda]

No. It works. Perhaps it’s your browser. Here’s the link again: flyballequip.com/upload/53161/documents/7887EE20015AF4C0.rtf I can send it to you in. Txt or doc file if you want.

[@Freedom_DieCast_Drag_Racing]

@@MikeFreda Im trying to get to the link on Google chrome and it will not open.

[@MikeFreda]

@@Freedom_DieCast_Drag_Racing Hello, I will fix the links. What code are you especially looking for? This Version 3 or the Dual Screen one on the Treasure Hunt Race? Please send me a email (Link in the About section) and we can talk offline.

[@MikeFreda]

How to make the Start Gate: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jqCQZYVsr9GlsJY

[@dwaynegreen7101]

How can I get a list of items needed for this project?

[@RaulMartinez-ex2pc]

i can't find this libraries: I2CIO.h FastIO.h and LCD.h Can someone help me?

[@MikeFreda]

I got all these libraries at GitHub.com. There may be newer ones since this video was uploaded. You just need to load and/or rename the ones that are suitable to your devices. cheers