Here's why the autox scoreboard market frustrates me.
RaceAmerica 6860 - red 7-segment LED format, 6 digits, 8" tall, ~15" x 47" case, $1,200+
Farmtek 7" - red 7-segment LED format, 5 digits, 7" tall digits, 9" x 32" case, $850
Farmtek 10" - red 7-segment LED format, 5 digits, 10" tall digits, 12" x 45" case, $1250
The only reason why clubs keep buying these things is because their T&S software (or hardware) interfaces to it.
Paying consumer retail prices, I can buy this 15" x 7.5" FULL COLOR LED matrix for $85:
https://www.adafruit.com/products/2276
Putting six of those together with some simple supporting electronics and a case, I could build a full color 15" x 45" LED video "wall" for $1,200...and probably still make a 40% profit. Picture the flexibility of being able to display off course with a red background or add a cone count and car number to the display. T&S software support and whether those LED matrices are visible outdoors are the big questions.
Of course, this also brings up the philosophical AXware-think question. With live timing and drivers having on-site access to the results from portable devices, should we even be using large scoreboards any more? As I wrote in another post, I didn't have our RA 6860 running at our first event with AXti.me over the weekend. Whenever anyone complained, they were told to use their smartphone to check out the results. Not one person said that they didn't have a smartphone, and I even saw a few watching the chrono display on their phones as their nearest competitors ran to see the times of the cars on course.
Every time that I start thinking about this, I keep coming back to ditching the big displays and adding a feature request to create a web page view consisting of a Weather Channel-like slide show with a crawl on the bottom for event announcements and stuff for people without smartphones. Put it up on a 24" + LCD TV/monitor in the paddock and let everyone stand around it.....
Cat herder emeritus - Poughkeepsie Sports Car Club, Inc
Solo Chair (retired) - New York Region, SCCA
AXti.me user since June 28, 2015