FAQs

Ask us a question and we’ll add it to this page, if we find it will be useful to others.

 

The oarpods, accelerometers and gate angle sensors are waterproof and don't mind getting splashed.

The Coaches Tablet is water resistant and is fine in the rain.  There is an air equalizer in the front of the tablet that could allow water entry if the table is immersed.

No and yes. The oarpods, accelerometers and gate angle sensors have two charging jacks. While these are gold plated, they will definitely corrode in salt water. In brackish water we recommend covering the contacts with black electrical tape and flushing with water after exposure. HOWEVER, contact us if you regularly row in salt water. For a small cost adder we can outfit your oars with wireless charging similar to cell phones. This eliminates the charging jacks.

We thought about measuring force at the gate. A patent search revealed an existing patent on a gate force sensor. A small company cannot risk the cost of a patent fight even if they don't conflict with the provisions of the patent. We quickly realized that, other than the cost of shipping oars, measuring force on the oars is a better solution. The oars can be moved from boat to boat. They are inherently more accurate than gate sensors and they are quite rugged.

The oars are calibrated at the factory. The force sensing is inherently linear. The linearity error before calibration is typically a few tenths of a percent.

The oarpods are mounted on the oar but can be removed and replaced. The calibration data for the oar is saved at calibration and can be transferred into a replacement oarpod. There is "some assembly required" but we provide a kit of the necessary parts and tools which we ship with the replacement oarpod. Any decent boatman should have no trouble with installing the replacement.  We have yet to have a failure in a force sensor gauge on any oar we've sold.

The force sensor is a strain gauge and it is located midway between the blade and the collar.

Good question. We have a short video on that. See the videos section of the website.

We are running the Display portion of the PC software on the Mac using a commercial program called "Parallels". Unfortunately, we haven't been able to get the Download Box working on the Mac under Parallels. The Download Box requires the USB port and is needed for the Download and Update portions of the PC software. Perhaps some computer literate can figure this out.