Discussion: SportIdent Stick Capacity

If my SI-8 stick can hold 30 punches and the course has 33 controls in total (Start + 31 controls + Finish), what happens to the data from those last three punches? How will the results appear in OE2010 when I download?

(I'm trying to figure this out for RMOC's next event; all of our rental sticks are SI-8 and the course, as currently configured, has 33 controls...)

IIRC, With our setup, they’ll stop beeping after 30 and no record for 31-33, just s-1-2-etc-29-30-f.

Also is a problem, I think, should they accidentally repunch after a few (five?) seconds and get an extra hit for that.

You could always just leave out the SI boxes from a secret subset of the controls and tell the runners they must go to all of them because they won't know which ones don't have punches...

The Start and Finish times go into special reserved spots on the SI-8, so you are really only 1 short.

I am not sure what OE2010 does with the data - I assume punches over 30 are never recorded on the SI-card so just don't show up.

Sandy is correct...start and finish have their own slot, so the last punch will not record at all on si-8 cards, so mp. For si-5 cards, the card recorded times for 30 and then acknowledged that the control had been visited for controls 31-36, but no times. So, you could be generous and accept that the control had been visited, though no split time for post race analysis.

Best to have the course setter drop 2-4 controls, to allow for a spare while out on the course (as Mr W suggests...if you punch, drink, punch, then you use two slots, even if at the same control), or to arrange to borrow higher capacity si-cards.

THANK YOU! That's exactly what I needed to know. I'll pass that along to the course setter.

To add what Valerie said, at OCIN we try to top out at 28 controls, to give 2 controls margin for accidental mispunches. But you do have proof of the order of punching up to 36. I think Attackpoint splits upload handles zero-time splits, but I'm not sure of the other uses, like Routegadget or Winsplits.

I know the SI-6 cards - edit: SI-5 - had those 6 extra non-time punch slots but I've never seen anything saying the SI-8's do as well. Does anyone know for sure that they do?

Here is a handy summary for all of the different models. Only SI-5 cards have the extra 6 non-time punch slots; SI-8 cards are limited to 30 total. All cards store start and finish in special slots, so they don't count against the number of controls that can be punched.

That's a great summary table; thank you, arthurd.