32 replies to this topic

[Jim Drago]

Dear Valued Traqmate Customer,

 

Thank you for your continued support. This letter is to inform you that due to the discontinuation of key components, the Traqmate Basic and Traqdash systems will no longer be manufactured.

 

We have a few Traqdash systems remaining in stock and have reserved enough spare parts to provide repair services throughout the warranty period and beyond.

 

Traqmate accessory items, such as camera systems and Traqdata input modules will continue to be available. Replacement items such as cables and GPS antennas will also be available on the Traqmate online store.

 

Thank you again for your patronage,

 

Glenn Stephens

President

Track Systems Techologies, LLC

[Steve Scheifler]

Swell. I guess we can forget about ever seeing the bugs fixed. Seems they are obliged, at least morally, to release their source code.

[steveracer]

WTF?!?

[Tom Scheifler]

                     

[steveracer]

Curiously no mention of it on their website.

[FTodaro]

I have two traq Dash systems for sale.

 

I wonder what the back story is? There is always a back story.

[Steve Scheifler]

Reading between the lines:
Running out of stock on key components. Production of a new run requires a large number of units to be economical. Can't sell the large number of units fast enough to be profitable after overhead. Time to stop before getting into debt that can't be repaid.

When the writing is on the wall, don't just turn your back.

[Steve Scheifler]

And as someone said to me, smart phones claim another victim, at least as a contributing factor. I can replay my day for a few $ spent on Harry's lap timer app.

[steveracer]

Talking to one of their tech people at Daytona, he said the next thing would be integration of the dash and data unit into one. Maybe related.

 

I switched to Traqmate because Racepak had stopped development and support of the G2X. 

[Tom Hampton]

I switched to Traqmate because Racepak had stopped development and support of the G2X.

Is this something that you learned from Racepak staff...or just an observation of their external behavior? I've never had anyone at Racepak tell me this or refuse to help me with my G2X. But, I certainly agree that their observable behavior give the appearance of neglect.

[Chris D.]

Great....just great.   So is the whole operation going belly up?  Nice that I dumped hundreds of dollars into this system.       

[Jeff Wasilko]

AiM has great products and support.

 

The Flatout guys seem to love the Race Technology DL1, but I've never had a good experience with it in the enduro car I run in.

[zoomzoom22]

You would think their website would say buy one of these and it is one of our last and may not last you.

[steveracer]

Is this something that you learned from Racepak staff...or just an observation of their external behavior? I've never had anyone at Racepak tell me this or refuse to help me with my G2X. But, I certainly agree that their observable behavior give the appearance of neglect.

They were advertising a module to start video with data like TM but never released it. Also no firmware update in years. I called and asked about the video module and was told it wasn't going to happen and they had stopped development of the G2X to focus on the drag race unit.

[Jim Drago]

Great....just great.   So is the whole operation going belly up?  Nice that I dumped hundreds of dollars into this system.       

I don't think they are too happy about it either  Changing world and they were unable to keep up. New units needed to be sold to bring in money to service the existing ones and keep the ball rolling. Somewhere along the line the new unit sales faded. Not sure if it was the chicken or the egg. That glitch that has never been fixed that makes it all but impossible to compare data IMO was the beginning of the downfall and lots of customers went elsewhere bc of it.  I have 3 traqdash complete setups of my own, all our team cars have them as well.  We will likely be switching to Aim for 2017

[Todd Green]

 

The Flatout guys seem to love the Race Technology DL1, but I've never had a good experience with it in the enduro car I run in.

 

I've been using DL1's for ~10 years now.  I had an AIM MXL Pista before that.  No system or company is perfect.  Here's my take:

 

Good:

• Solid hardware (*) with many analog inputs for sensors (8+) @ 100Hz.  There are higher end units for things like logging at 1 KHz, mor inputs, etc.
• Innovative in some ways.  They had removable flash storage when AIM was giving you a paltry 8MB.  GPS support long before AIM etc.
• Their dash is configurable and has multiple (virtual) screens so you can set it up how you like, day/night modes, configurable shift lights, etc. etc.
• I like their software the best and it is really easy for me to do what I need to get the info/analysis quickly.  Of course everyone's preference will differ and there is always an adjustment period when switching.  I can't stand AIMs software, but that's probably more to do with having used RT's for so long.

Bad:

• They are out of England and so support/shipping etc. can be an issue.  They do have a local (US) "office" and most of the time the guy is great and will work with you for hours, sometimes you can't get a phone call/email returned.  I do think he is a good guy, just gets swamped.
• Feature requests.  It's pretty much take it or leave it.  I've had feature requests open for years and years (as have many others if you read their support forums).  They aren't exotic requests (IMO).  Simple things like being able to only have an alarm for oil pressure if you are above a certain RPM so you don't have a warning light in the pits.  Or being able to pre-load sector times so you don't have to do a lap before you get predictive times. etc. (Edit: To be fair some features have been added, but often not as quickly as you'd like.)
• Bugs.  All software/hardware has bugs, but man RT seems to have some doozies and they can take quite some time to get fixed.
• They are a small company and while they were very innovative 10 years ago, they can be slow to follow new technologies like GoPro integration, ECU/CAN bus logging etc. (Edit: Again to be fair, they do have CANBus support now and support older GoPro's, but if you have a 3 (Black or newer) you're out of luck.)

* I've never had issues with hardware, in fact I still have my original Mk1 running in our el-cheapo enduro car.  I think I got my Mk3 in 2010 with no issues.  However I've heard of others at the track who have had issues with their DASH4Pro's and Club/Sport DL-1's.  Mostly the dashes.  So maybe a production run issue as most of these guys got them near the same time.

[FTodaro]

I don't think they are too happy about it either  Changing world and they were unable to keep up. New units needed to be sold to bring in money to service the existing ones and keep the ball rolling. Somewhere along the line the new unit sales faded. Not sure if it was the chicken or the egg. That glitch that has never been fixed that makes it all but impossible to compare data IMO was the beginning of the downfall and lots of customers went elsewhere bc of it.  I have 3 traqdash complete setups of my own, all our team cars have them as well.  We will likely be switching to Aim for 2017

If we were smart, with a number of people in the same boat, we should be looking to see if AIM would consider a group buy. I could see significant numbers making a change.

 

Then follow that up with another round of Live Chat or what ever we did last time to learn Data.

 

We could get Todd Lamb to do a seminar or someone from Aim or both.

[Steve Scheifler]

One more reason for AIM to continue lagging behind on things like integrating video into the data analysis software.

[Tom Scheifler]

After spending thousands last year on TM, spend thousands more on AIM not knowing if they will continue operations. Not excited about taking that leap of faith.

Tom's new $10 analysis "software" ...

On turn [insert turn number] you need to brake less and get back on the throttle sooner.

Works for all tracks globally.
Available for Windows, Macs, iPhone, Android.
Shipping immediately. Order now!

[Sphinx]

I don't think they are too happy about it either  Changing world and they were unable to keep up. New units needed to be sold to bring in money to service the existing ones and keep the ball rolling. Somewhere along the line the new unit sales faded. Not sure if it was the chicken or the egg. That glitch that has never been fixed that makes it all but impossible to compare data IMO was the beginning of the downfall and lots of customers went elsewhere bc of it.  I have 3 traqdash complete setups of my own, all our team cars have them as well.  We will likely be switching to Aim for 2017

 

I've never had trouble comparing data, though perhaps I'm not doing it correctly.  What exactly is this glitch?