Electronic timer for showjumping

[John]

Our local riding club held a couple of shows recently which involved hiring some timing equipment consisting of a light beam which was "broken" by the horse as it entered the jumping course, counting elapsed time during the jumping and breaking a light beam on exiting. It struck me that if we hold more than four or five shows a year with about £50 a time for hire and transport charges there was a good chance that it would soon be cost effective to set up our own kit. The commercial units seem to operate with a retro reflective Tx/Rx and a reflector for it to bounce off (about 10 metres max away) and a timer which starts from one impulse and stops from the other. I've Googled around a bit but met with the usual information overload from mostly foreign sites. Is anyone in this newsgroup clued up on costs and availability for this kind of kit, operable from a car battery or similar

John

[Chris]

Not sure if it is any use to you, but you could do what you require with a basic plc:

£70. If you like pain you can program it from the front panel, otherwise the software is free:

the download cable is about £20. The software lets you write a program and simulate it without the hardware, so you could have a play and see how you get on with no outlay.

I don't have any experience with photoelectrics but one of these should do the job:

'll find more options at places like and

Pitfalls to watch out for are whether any level interfacing is required between photoelectrics and PLC, and what accuracy you require.

HTH,

Chris