Con’s Rmonitor File

First you need to open the Operator section of Orbits. You will see a tab on the top left marked Scoreboard. Click on that for the drop down menu and go to “Settings”. Make sure “Scoreboard Enabled” is checked. If this isn’t checked you will get no feed. Then select the serial port if you are using a serial connection. The “baud rate” will always be 9600. If you are using a network you leave the serial port selection at none and the TCP/IP port is 50000. Write down the “HOST INFORMATION”. You will need this for the Rmonitor program. The go to the laptop or terminal of the computer that will be running Rmonitor. When you open Rmonitor it should always be an EMPTY screen with only a task bar at the top. If you have results windows there already you need to close all of them. If you don’t, the feed doesn’t know what results screen you really want it on. First thing is at the top marked “SETTINGS” Click on settings and go to “COMMUNICATION”. Then select the way you are sending info, either by serial or by TCP/IP. If you are using serial you need to click on serial and then click on “Configure”. This is where you state what port you are receiving the information through. If you are using TCP/IP, click on TCP/IP and then configure. Here is where you put the “HOST IP ADDRESS, remember you wrote this down from the Orbits settings. Port will always be 50000. Then click ok and then ok on the next window. You should be back to a blank screen now. Now go to the “Main” tab and click and select “New Results Window”. Select which results you want to make. You will then get a pop-up window with all the fields that can be on the Results Monitor. Select the ones you want in the order you want them. If you don’t select them in the order you want you will have to drag the column to where you want it. Click “OK” when done. Now go back to the “Main” tab, click and select general. Here is where you want to select what appear at the bottom of the screen pertinent to the session. I always like to have current race time on the bottom, this I will explain next. When you are happy go back to the “Main” tab and select “Save Layout”. Here you give that screen a name like Prac/Qual or Race. Click on save. Do this for practice, qualifying and race. You only need one of each or you can use qualifying also for practice. Now you are ready to go. To see if you have the right serial port or IP address just start a test session and if you have in the general comments section time of race checked, you will see time moving at the bottom of the screen. If you just see 00:00.000 then go back and make sure you have your connection in the “communications” tab marked correctly. Okay, now you can start a real session on Orbits. Start it and after all the cars have left the pit lane hit the F2 key. What this does is slap the system in the face and tells it to wake up. If you really want to startle it, hit the Control key then the F2 and F2 again. When you do either of these the Results Monitor will get rid of all the info and start to rebuild info. So now you are at the end of a session. Orbits first throws the “Checker Flag” and then the “Stop. You will see the clock stop at the bottom. You don’t need to do anything. Once you are done for the day you need to shut this down different than any other windows program. Go to the “Main Tab” Click on it and then click on “Clear Results” it will ask you if you want to save it and say yes. If you had saved the layout previously it will tell you the layout is already there and do you want to overwrite it, say yes. Then go back to “Main” click on it and then go to “EXIT” and click on “EXIT”. A pop up window shows and asks if you want to exit Results Monitor and say yes. You should then be at the desktop. If you don’t follow this close procedure you will see a results screen when you open the program and have to shut those screens down. Always start on BLANK Rmonitor screen with just the task bar.

Other than setting up the communication setting and shutting it down, there is nothing to do and you can leave this unattended.

If you are using one laptop or computer terminal to run both Rmonitor and iCard minimize the Rmonitor screen and then open the iCard program.