Orbits 2 Easy v.1

First thing, there is only one (1) icon for Orbits 2. Take a look at the screen. You have three tabs across the top: Registration, Timing and Processing. Registration is where you select the track and event, add competitors, list your track records, create your Groups and Runs or View the Time Schedule. You can import your track records from an excel file, format would be record time, class, date, comment (I use driver's name and date set). If you use this feature it will automatically update when you have a new record. The View Schedule is nice because you can see if you have all your runs for a group and if they are in order. The Timing Tab screen has the name of the event across the top, if it is the wrong event go back to registration and select the correct event. Under that you have Select a Run. Here is where you select what you want to time. In the Left Column of the window you have show groups, changes how you want to view runs and schedules. Decoder; this is where you select how the decoder is hooked up to you computer. You select the method either Com1 or network. Highlight Found on Com or Found on Network. If you are on a network click Enter IP Manually. You will get a pop up that asks you for the IP address of you decoder, all decoders are 192.168.10.10 by default, and click OK. Either way you connect you will see the info for the decoder filling in a small screen. You also will see that the NO DECODER CONNECTED in red on the bottom left screen now says DECODER CONNECTED in green. The next thing is the Passing Counter, if you want to display the passing counter just double click it. The next is Announcements; if you want something to be on the official race results you can enter it here. The next is a print scheduler. This is only available during a race. You can set it to print a reduced passing file by number of laps or by time. After these you have the ability to edit runs and create runs. You then will see the familiar flags printer and clock. The clock is really good to use when you are working on one run and then go back to do something else. You can hit the clock and it will automatically take you back to the run that is in progress.

Set up

Open Orbits 2 - The first time you open program you will get the "Event Wizard". This creates a new event. If you are setting up a new event and your computer already has an event go to the left side of the window and click on "Create an Event". This wizard is way cool. Go through and enter the info on the event name, dates and edit the Chief of TS to add his or her name. Then click next.

The next screen in the wizard is the track. If it is the first time you are setting up an event you will need to enter track info or if you are entering info for a different track than the ones you already have in there. Click "New" and you get a pop up for the track info. Enter the track name and the length and make sure you change the km to Miles. If you are using photocells make sure you check the Photocell block and leave the info for timeout and separation at default. Click Next. You go back to the track screen and now you can click Next on the bottom.

The next screen asks you what you want to do: Create Groups and Runs for this event,

Copy Groups and Runs from a previous event - great if you always use the same schedule and groups or if you have a double event with the same schedule and groups both days

Or Create Groups and Runs later - good if you want to stop here or if you are using this only for registration

This is a bit different from the previous Orbits. You set up everything at once for Group 1 and then go to Group 2. This means all of the runs, you can go back and add or delete.

Normally you would select "Create Groups and Runs for this event". You now go to a screen that asks you to enter the group name - enter Group 1 and all the classes in that group. The Description can be a note to yourself and won't show up anywhere, that is why you want to put the classes in the Group name. Click next.

The next screen in the wizard is the Competitor screen for Group 1. If you keep competitors in your database you can add them individually here or if you are copying a whole group you can select all and transfer them to this group. Remember you are only doing Group 1 for now. If you don't have any competitors in your database because it is your first time using this or you delete or copy them out you will see no competitors so you then click the Next button. Also if you are importing your competitors from Monitor or TS Manager or an excel file you would skip this and click next.

The Next screen in the wizard is the Runs screen for Group 1; remember you are working on each group separately. You will see that one run names "New run" is already highlighted. Double click on that and you get a pop up window that says modify New Run. First Line is the Name. Enter Practice, Qualifying or Race Group 1. If it is race make sure you put in the Classes. I do this in case so that when I download my results to Mylaps.com I can go in and see what race we are talking about and if I have to modify it I can, otherwise you don't actually know which race group you are looking for. Set the date for the run (Sat. date for practice and qualifying and Sunday date for race. Set the type of Run, Practice, Qualifying or Race. Set the time. What I usually do is get the schedule and do a guesstimate on the starting times for all runs. Start Method is usually Start on first passing. You can set the minimum lap time to something a bit faster than the overall track record so it will automatically ignore a too fast lap. The next block should not be check as it is - stating Count First Passing as a completed Lap. If for some reason you forget to start the group you can go back and edit the run and select this so you don't loose the lap, although it won't have a time, and you won't have to edit every competitor by adding a lap to his timecard. The next block is "Don't stop race clock during a red flag." I check this in case the red flag gets hit by accident. If you do have a red flag and you want to stop the clock per your stewards all you do is go back to edit the run and select it. The next section is Auto Finish On. If you are setting up a Practice or Qualifying I would not set any lap, just leave it as "Do Not Use Auto Finish". If you are setting up a qualifying race or a race set it to the number of laps. I have never used the set to time because it throws the checkered flag exactly when the time is up and not on the leader. Next is Qualifications Requirements; I don't set it to anything. So now you can hit the Next button. You are back to the "Runs" Screen, set up your next run for Group 1. Keep doing this until you have all the runs for Group 1 completed. When you have all the runs for Group 1 completed click the Next button on the bottom of the window. You will get a pop up saying "Group Created. You have the option of Creating another Group or Finishing. Select Create another group for the event and click Finish on the bottom of the window. You get the Create a New Group Window. Just like you did for Group 1 enter the Group number and classes and click next. From here you have the Competitor screen and then setting up the runs as you did for Group 1. Keep going through this till you have all your Groups and their runs set up. When you are finished Select "Finished creating groups and runs and the hit the Finish button at the bottom of the screen. What you will see on the screen is your event name on Select and Event and also the Groups and Runs.

Now that you are finished setting up your Groups and Runs go to the top of the screen and go to "TOOLS". Click on Options. Here is where you set the column names for what you want. I set them up as 1.) Hometown, State, 2.)Region/Member #, 3.)Car, 4.)Sponsor. You click on ok when you are done and the screen flashes on and off and you are back to the Registration screen.

Importing Competitors: If you have an Excel file or another 3rd party system like Monitor or TS Manager you don't need to put them in any order. The Excel file will need to be saved as a Text Tab Delimited File. Tell whoever does the Excel how you want your columns like Hometown State as one and Region and Member # as another. If you don't you need to have a field for each one. If you are using TS Manager or Monitor you probably will need separate fields for all of these. Also get rid of stuff you don't need in the excel file, like column headings and columns for stuff like pd or check # or anything you aren't going to use. On the Registration Screen click on Competitor Database. Then click on Import Competitors. You then get a pop up that says "Select a file". Select where you want the competitors to come from, and then the file, then click on Open. Then click Next on the bottom of the window. You then see a screen that says "Select Columns". If you are importing from Chronix or Orbits you can go to the button that says "Template" and select either one. If you are importing from an Excel file or TS Manager or Monitor you need to select the columns. Take a look at what is on the screen. The Car Number, First Name, Class, Car/Bike Reg, Driver Reg, Transponder, 2nd Transponder. The next few will be things you selected in one of the earlier steps. I have listed Hometown, Region, Car and Sponsor as additional fields. Notice each one has a drop down arrow. You will select the info that belongs in each with these arrows. Car/Bike Reg and Driver Reg can be left as blanks, they will auto fill. The 2nd transponder number is something we really don't use. It is used in Pro endurance racing for a driver identification system or when a transponder quits you can add a second and then select it in the run. When you are finished you will see the info on the bottom with the driver's info under columns. Check the columns to make sure you identified them correctly. You now can go back to the "Template" button and select load and save it as your template for future use. Then click Next. You now see a window that says "Select Competitors". You should see your competitors you imported here. You can move the columns around here also. Select the competitors you want. If you want all of them they should already be selected. and click Next. If you don't want all of them Deselect all and check the ones you want and click Next on the bottom of the screen. You now see a window that says "Import Finished". Your competitors should be in blue on this screen. You will also see the number of competitors added to your database. Click "Finish". You now have the "Competitor Database" window we started from but it has all the classes and competitors you just imported. Do you like the helmet colors. These are to signify different classes. I am attaching a database for you to try this with.

Now that you have the competitor database you need to import those to the Groups. Keep the Competitor Database open on the Registration screen but move it towards the bottom. On the registration window open the folder for Group 1 by clicking on Group 1. Then go to the Competitor Database and select the classes for Group 1. You can select more than 1 class at a time by doing this. First select the first class, then hold down the control key and select the rest of the classes. Now go to the competitor side of the database window and select all of the competitors, they should be only those classes that you selected. You can right click on one competitor and then select "all competitors" from the drop down. They all should turn blue. Then right click on the competitor again and at the top of the drop down you will see "Add competitors to selected group". Select that. You will then see that your competitors are now in the Competitors in Group 1 etc on the Registration screen. You can now close the Competitor Database. You populate your runs from the Groups on the Registration page. I would not populate afternoon or the next day runs until then, that way your info should be correct. You are now ready to do some timing.

Timing:

Much of Orbits 2 is the same. The Track Record function is new. If you have a new track record the system will give you a pop up during the run and ask you if you want to accept this record. This is why you always want to set a minimum time. Say yes and the record will appear on your AMB printed results and also will update you AMB track records file. On the bottom of the screen is what we refer to as tapes or the run order of competitors passing the loop. If you are running photocells with AMB, very highly recommended, each block will be outlined in yellow meaning that there is a photocell time also for that car. Another thing is if you put your mouse over a passing line number on the left side of the passing screen it will give you a synopsis of that competitor without having to highlight that competitor and sliding the slide bar over to see everything on that line. On the passing screen you can also highlight a competitor to invalidate passing, validate passing, transponder switch, delete passing, show competitor passings. In the column on the right is what your results are actually saying. Make sure there are no duplicates and no classes that don't belong there. You can just highlight them and say hide results. This will not remove the competitor. When you get unrelated transponders or photocells, determine whom they belong to and double click on the passing line and then select the competitor or create a competitor. At the bottom of that window you will see the two boxes, one is to update to the database and the other is to update only to the Group. You should select both. This will update everything for you. Another new thing is that when you set the race to Auto Finish you will get a pop up that sways race to end on auto finish in 1 lap. Here you can change it to more or let it go and it will auto finish.

Results

When you are running a session the first time for practice, qualifying and race go to the results window on the left and right click and you see "Choose Columns" and select that. Uncheck everything and select everything that you want on your results. If it isn't marked here you won't see it in the results. At the end of a session click the Printer icon and select what you want printed and click on preview. You get a copy of your results. Click on one of the columns or click on "edit" at the top. You will be able to move the columns around to have a good print out. Contrary to the save feature the system does not yet save. AMB is working on that now. For practice, qualifying and race you can use the AMB printout. Make sure that when you set up your event you put everything you need like sanction number etc somewhere that will come out on the printout. That is the down and dirty and easy result. What I do is this. Have the computer operator go to the Processing Tab at the end of the session, after they print one result and time cards. I use the printed AMB results for the provisional result. Just write Provisional on it, sign and date and time and you are done. I also post the time cards, laps of competitors. At the Processing Tab they select the run that was just finished. Right click on the right window and choose columns (everything you want on the results). You only need to do that part once for all of the practice, or qualifying and races. Then have the operator import results to an HTML file. Because I run this on a network they save it to an export file that I can get off of the results computer. If you have no network have the operator save it to a disk or memory stick. You don't need to name it this will be done automatically with the run and group info. Open the HTML file with Excel. Now all you need to do is pretty it up. Go to file and page setup, select landscape and fit to page. You can then enter anything that you want for the heading like the sanction number, track info, dates etc. You will have to change the cell format for leading zero numbers to text. Highlight the cell and go to format, go to number and select text. Then go back to the cell and add the leading zero. You will also have to format the time field to show the time as 0:00.000. To do this highlight the column, go to format at the top, select numbers, go to general and find the time format. You most likely will have to add the last to zeros. You will also have to get rid of the colored screen. select the whole page by clicking on the upper left at the column and row intersection that is blank, then go to format, then patterns and select the white block. When you click back on the worksheet it will all be white. For races you add the race info from the copy that was printed off the AMB system and any records, penalties etc. Save it to a folder named for the weekend in your documents. You will need to give it a name and save it as an Excel worksheet not a workbook. That's all there is too it. What is good about this way is it is easy to move things around for penalties etc. I am attaching a few HTML files for you to practice on.

Mylaps.com

If you look at the top tool bar you will see that Mylaps is there. This is real simple now. Just click on it, sign in and your event shows up, tell it to upload and you are done. Once you have uploaded to Mylaps.com you can go back into Mylaps and edit what you put in.

After the first couple of times you use this you will really appreciate the changes.

Any questions, feel free to call me at 1-440-442-4521 or 1-216-256-5761 or email me at times99@sbcglobal.net

Enjoy!