Ultimate RowPro setup if you want to use ErgData and ANT+ HR

[Carl Watts]

So my existing PM5 setup was having a few issues so an idea popped into my head as it often does.

What I decided to do was try and add a second PM to the same rower running off the same pickup and it works. You simply solder a second cable in parallel to the existing cable. Red to red, black to black, white to white.

Side by side the two monitors are identical in timing, however RowPro introduces delays that are really bad for the likes of the 100m, 1 minute and 500m in particular.

I can now run a second gen PM3 on V332 firmware and a PM5 on V168 on the same rower. There are a number of advantages and only one disadvantage.

Advantages.

1. The PM3 is only running RowPro and nothing else. I decided to use a PM3 and not my second PM5 as I don't want any additional Wireless devices in operation that I could mistakenly connect to and any possible interference. This will get rid of any monitor failures to load the row correctly, especially the 10K. I guess if you wanted to run ErgRace and ErgData at the same time you would need two PM5's.

2. The PM5 is independent so all the online rows are no longer a "Race Start". I just did a 100m test row and there is nearly a 2 second penalty doing it online with RowPro due to not only the race start but the internet latency as well as how the monitor actually starts the clock.

22.6 sec on the PM5 and 24.3 sec on the PM3. All the delays including your reaction time at the start equates to 1.7 seconds. I always figured the delay could be as high as 2 seconds and this confirms it. You can see the actual latency when you use ErgRace and its significant. Concept 2 is probably measuring it so they can factor it into individual race results as a "Correction" factor.

3. Its going to be really easy now to withdraw from a row if there are any problems without crashing my whole system and having to restart the setup from scratch. This takes minutes and is simply hopeless when you have other people waiting to start the new row. Even if I do have to restart the PC for some reason I still do not need to setup the HR and ErgData again as its sitting there on the PM5.

Disadvantage.

1. You have to remember to independently setup the forthcoming row on the PM5 because its no longer done for you by RowPro. Something I can live with for now if it ends in a 100% reliable setup.

No doubt I can get rid of the second monitor at some point if things improve but the second monitor cable is useful for monitor testing and I no longer have to keep unplugging mine and plugging it in again.