New BOL Product G Lab Meters

[GeoffV]

Came across this in the BOL store

This could be a fun product.

So who can pull the highest G's this season?

G-Lab 100

Anyone use it yet?

[pokkis]

Highest G's will be for person making hardest crash :(

[Algunderfoot]

So who can pull the highest G's this season?

Anyone use it yet?

This is a cool product, but I have a hunch we would all be a little dissapointed in the actual G's pulled in a alpine turn. Somehow 1.2 or 1.5 doesn't sound that impressive during the Apres' conversation.

Maybe Fin can clue us in to an actual example?

[Snowman]

Bordy has the current record. Let the games begin.

[carvedog]

Whaaaat?

I will break this little meter with my massive......forces.

Or at least the waist belt.

[inkaholic]

Bordy has the current record. Let the games begin.

Which is?

You can't just post this up without a number for everyone to shoot for.

Ink

[Dave ESPI]

I will avoid this competition... it is just asking for busted tibfibs and colarbones from tying to overload/ over ride our boards and have them catapult us like a recurve archery bow that blows a string not to forget mention of the risk of hypoxia.....

now if there is an endurance setting for consistent G's x the number of turns we make.... that would be interesting

Straightlining and hammering a high G' hairpin turn.... usualy spells disaster, or is to AVOID such aka: downhill skiers and out of control kids who end up right in our path!

Id guess Boardy is right around 3 G's

[NateW]

Must. Have. One.

[GeoffV]

Bordy has the current record. Let the games begin.

yeah, agree Bordy is probably the base line for this experiment.

[Jack M]

There's an iPhone App that allegedly does the same thing. No idea how accurate it is.

[Corey]

There's an iPhone App that allegedly does the same thing. No idea how accurate it is.

Interesting. I just searched for it: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=290371763&mt=8 is linked from a forum, but I think it's dead now.

Looks promising, but the iPhone hardware is supposedly limited to 2G. That's probably enough for us mortals though. ;)

[fin]

Just put up the official announcement on the new G-Lab G meter here:

G-Lab Announcement

We are pretty excited about this product as it is something we have wanted to see for a long time.

For the record, Billy Bordy is the current king of the G's with a reading of 1.15 G's (.5 duration reading) at Copper Mnt. last spring.

Let me know if you guys have any questions or comments on this.

[dcadwell]

I'm the developer of the G-Lab 100 meter. I appreciate everyone's interest and Fin's help with testing last winter.

For the record, the maximum G-Level recorded for a non-motorized sport was an exhibition parachute jumper. One chute opening was 3.6 G's. Of course, it required no skill beyond pulling the cord to achieve that G level.

The key capability of the G-Lab is that it calculates the vector G-force independent of direction or orientation while simultaneously compensating for the Earth's gravity. This makes accurate G-level readings possible for an un-restrained person. The automotive systems will record G levels in 2 axes - lateral and fore/aft. These axes are independent (perpendicular) of Earth's gravity. There are I-Phone apps that will record G-levels, but only in independent axes as far as I know. If you weren't too scared to break your phone in a wreck and wore it during a run, you would have to do a bunch of vector math to calculate the maximum vector G-force, assuming you knew the orientation of the I-Phone with respect to the Earth at the moment the x, y and z reading's were taken.

The G-Lab accelerometer data has 4 times the resolution of the I-Phone accelerometer and the G-Lab can be field calibrated to compensate for altitude and latitude, which both effect the Earth's gravity. The I-Phone also has a limited data rate, and is application limited as far as I know to 2 G's (although the accelerometer in the phone can be switched to an 8 G mode, I'm not sure the I-Phone supports that mode). 2 G's sounds good, but the Earth takes up half that range off the top. So the effective range is really only 1 G. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it is a fine phone. :)

Thanks for the interest and the opportunity to post here,

Don

[Ray]

Fin,

Sounds like a cool "SES G-Force Challange"... "King fo G's"

[GeoffV]

Fin,

Sounds like a cool "SES G-Force Challange"... "King fo G's"

Ray with your high speed carves I think you can beat 1.15 G's

yes that is a dare Ray:eplus2::eplus2:

[Corey]

Cool. I'm a little surprised that the number is only 1.15 G. Not dissing Bordy's ability in any way, just surprised at how much I've seen riders tilted over without body parts on the snow. I expected 2.5-3 G.

It's always cool to put numbers to things.

[queequeg]

Cool. I'm a little surprised that the number is only 1.15 G. Not dissing Bordy's ability in any way, just surprised at how much I've seen riders tilted over without body parts on the snow. I expected 2.5-3 G.

It's always cool to put numbers to things.

1.5 is actually sounds like quite a bit to me, think about having to remain standing up at double your weight ... now do that while laying down some high speed turns. For me that would mean having to support nearly 400 lbs of weight. 600 at 2, 800 at 3. (I think ... yes?)

[Corey]

No doubt you have to be strong!

Physics says a 45 degree lean means the rider has to pull 1G* lateral to stay upright. A 60 degree lean means the rider has to pull 2G*. A 70.5 degree lean means 3G*. I've seen Bordy lean over more than 45 degrees, on ice, riding switch, and blowing past me. ;)

* All these numbers are pure lateral acceleration, not a combination of cornering force plus earth's gravity. Those numbers would be 1.41G, 2.24G, and 3.16G respectively.

[Ray]

Ray with your high speed carves I think you can beat 1.15 G's

No idea, but this is something I like to try... my cup a tee

Contest or no contest, would be fun to test...

Cheers!

Ray

[dcadwell]

For the record reading of 1.15, the vector magnitude was 2.15 G. The rider would feel 2.15 times his normal weight. The G-lab subtracts 1 G for the Earth's gravity. At rest, the meter will read 0.00 rather than 1.00. So the lean angle - from the contact with the snow to the center of mass of the rider - would have been about 60 degrees from vertical.

Don

[Bordy]

Don,

the meter read 2.whatever but fin subtracted a g was that wrong?

some of the steamboat kids and lexa loo gave it a try, besg girl was 1.72 reading on the meter.

[fin]

Yo Bordy,

The unit we all where trying last spring had the G reading STARTING at 1G. So when you pulled that 1.15 reading the G-Lab showed 2.15. Remember we had to subtract 1 G to get the actual value at the time.

So that 1.72 reading was actually .72 total G's pulled.

Note to all: the final version starts at a value of zero, so the above does not apply.

Yea, I am seeing a G-Off at the 2010 SES

[gdboytyler]

For the record reading of 1.15, the vector magnitude was 2.15 G. The rider would feel 2.15 times his normal weight. The G-lab subtracts 1 G for the Earth's gravity. At rest, the meter will read 0.00 rather than 1.00. So the lean angle - from the contact with the snow to the center of mass of the rider - would have been about 60 degrees from vertical.

Don

Sounds veeerrrry interesting.

Don, why do you have the G-lab subtract 1G? Whenever I read about other items pulling G's, space shuttle, dragsters, etc, I don't think they subtract the 1G.

[dcadwell]

The early versions of the G-Lab 100 did not subtract out the 1 G on the display. This is common in G meters for flight where there is 3 dimensional motion involved. This caused some confusion in some people who are generally more accustomed to G force meters used in auto sports.

A typical G force meter in a car reads 0 lateral G’s when driving in a straight line. “1 lateral G” means the driver feels just as heavy sideways as down. Many aircraft style G meters (and early versions of the G-Lab) in the car would read 1.41 G since it is reading the vector sum of the horizontal acceleration due to cornering and gravity. I’ve talked to stunt pilots and there are two camps. Some adjust the bezel of the old school mechanical G meters to read 0 at rest. Others leave them at 1. The G-Lab 100 is “adjusted to 0” and would read 0.41. If the driver weighed 100 pounds, he would feel like he weighed 141 pounds being pushed down and out of the car at a 45 degree angle. Of course, we are so accustomed to the constant downward pressure in the car seat, the driver only notices the sideways force.

<O:p</O:p

The easiest way to look at it is that the G-Lab reads the maximum G force generated by motion (or, G force generated in addition to gravity) regardless of the direction.

<O:p</O:p

Don

[bjvircks]

please forgive me if this has already been clarified and I just didn't get it... For how long of a time period must a given G be sustained for it to be recorded? Filtering has been discussed which I would guess is intended to eliminate the capture of high amplitude, short duration impulses. (edit) Well, Duh... I just followed Fin's link in post #12 of this thread... .25 sec and .5 sec settings.

Also, rather than carrying the meter on the waist, where the body tends to act as a big damper... what about placing it ON the board? My thoughts are to put it right behind the front binding and armoring it somehow to prevent boot damage. (edit)... My concern with this mount would be how the device copes with 'chatter' (highly repetative, high amplitude, short duration, shock loads) The device would probably include these impulses in the summing, skewing the readings.