How-To: Configure Your Smartycam - Throttle, Brake, Overlays and More!

Sam Reed

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Dec 14, 2022
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Palmer, MA
It's no secret that I love the AiM Smartycam. It's the perfect companion to an AiM dash and it's one of the few tech products I've bought in a while (besides Airpods!) that absolutely justifies its premium price. Doing video with a GoPro or other custom camera is a lot of legwork compared to setting up your Smartycam once and letting it do the work for you.

See the thread on rendering video without a Smartycam if you don't have one, and want to use a GoPro other camera instead.

If you took delivery of an SR with a Smartycam, you get a lot of features out of the box. You should get a basic overlay with rpm, gear, speed, and track map without any work. But you may notice that your throttle and brake don't work! Here's how to get them going.

Importing Your Dash

If you haven't already, create a new config for your dash in RaceStudio3. In the "Configurations" section (gear icon), click New... and create a new MXM or MXS profile correlating to the version of the dash you have. You probably have an MXS 1.2 or 1.3.

Once you've done this, turn on your car and connect to its wifi network. It should be named something like "RUSH SR" and a bunch of numbers. It may take a while to connect. One you do, you should see the dash show up in "Connected Devices" at the bottom left of RaceStudio.

Important: You then need to import what's currently on the dash before you modify it! Otherwise, you'll overwrite the stock configuration and end up deleting a bunch of channels. If you do this, you can restore your dash using this file for the MXS 1.2/1.3 on KLine cars. Note this is for Rush SRs produced before March 2023, I will upload a CANBUS config when I can.

Click Receive at the top (highlighted, it won't be grayed out if you're connected to your dash), and it will replace the configuration on your computer with what's currently on your dash.

Screenshot 2023-09-16 at 2.19.02 PM.png



Brakes

Leave your car on, open RaceStudio 3, and connect to your dash's wifi network. Pull a session from your dash and look at your max front brake pressure in heavy braking zones. Set it to bar, not psi. This becomes important later.

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Your max may vary. My car badly needed a bleed so I wasn't running as much pressure as I should; other cars should be reading ~20bar. So in this case I'm going to assume my maximum is 8 bar.

Then, you want to create a Math Channel in your dash, not in the analysis section, so your dash can calculate it live and feed it to the Smartycam. Click the gears icon at the top left, highlight your dash, and go into its settings. Click Add Channel:

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I name my channel "BrakePerc", set it to "Pct Brake Load" and do a simple math operation to get it to where I want to go. You want your max pressure * this constant to equal 100. So, since 100/8 = 12.5, my channel is as follows:

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Upload your config to the dash and test it. When your car is on you can open it up in RS3 and view live data. I can't show you right now because my car is in a trackside garage, but it should be fairly self-explanatory.

Sidenote: this is why we are looking at our data in bar, not psi. The math that the dash does internally is always on bar. If you are doing a math channel in RS3 Analysis you can choose the unit. Pick a consistent naming scheme so you can tell what is native to your dash and what is a Analysis Math Channel!


Throttle:

In previous versions of this post, we used SDS IGN AN 1. That was complex and not as good as using the MAP sensor. The new formula in Analysis is:

(("SDS MAP" - 6.3) / 7.7) * 100

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To do this on your dash, you have to simplify the formula so it can be expressed as a Linear Corrector:

TPS = ((MAP - 6.3) / 7.7) * 100
TPS = (MAP - 6.3) * 12.987
TPS = 12.987MAP - 81.8181


Screenshot 2023-06-22 at 2.50.00 PM.png



Here's how it comes together:

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Sending to SmartyCam:

The last step is to ensure this is being sent to the SmartyCam directly. Set your Throttle Pos and Brake Pos:

Screenshot 2023-09-16 at 2.33.56 PM.png


And that's it!

You can configure your overlay however you like. Here's how I do mine (background picture isn't actually a Rush, but it's close):

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Here's an example of how it comes together:

 
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Here are the exported configs I used, that you can load directly if you wish. Note you will get my custom dashes along with it, which you may or may not want. I suggest importing as a separate device and using it for reference only.

Note the below config is for KLine cars only. I will upload a CAN-bus config by the end of July.
 

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Another great write up!
I don't use nor have a smarty cam but a lot of useful info here that can still be applied for other areas.

Thank you for sharing!
 
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I'm working on my Throttle logging, and appreciate the information. I use a VBOX, because that is what I had and know well. I setup the default math channels just like described and ran a session with it. This logged the SDS IGN AN 1 data so I could determine the 0% and 100% throttle position.

For me...
0% = 81 deg
100% = 38deg

My equations are similar so the "Intermediate" calculation is
(SDS IGN AN1 * -0.5) + 40.5

Then I modified the second formula to be
Intermediate * (100/21.5)

Since the 4x multiplier isn't quite as close as the OPs (I'm a little closer to 5x).

Will post a video later with it....
 
@Sam Reed have you seen the post that uses map pressure for throttle? Neither solution is linear or perfect, but typically map, throttle, rpm is more of a 2 dimensional graph than ign, throttle, rpm. That is to say 50% throttle will produce more simialr map pressures at differing RPM than ignition angle. Did you compare these?
 
@Sam Reed have you seen the post that uses map pressure for throttle? Neither solution is linear or perfect, but typically map, throttle, rpm is more of a 2 dimensional graph than ign, throttle, rpm. That is to say 50% throttle will produce more simialr map pressures at differing RPM than ignition angle. Did you compare these?

I haven't seen that post. I think you're right, the MAP sensor data, at least on my car, looks much less messy. It ranges from 6.3psi at zero throttle to 14psi at full, which is pretty easy to write a math channel for.

Thanks, I've updated the top post!
 
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Nice, (y) Plus I'd argue even if you had a throttle position sensor feed, map pressure is the more relevant variable anyway, for an NA ITB engine. In analysis, throttle angle is just a proxy for commanded torque, and map more closely follows this than angle, since angle is a non linear offender as well (i.e. how the last 20% of throttle is all basically 100% throttle).
 
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Can we use something like this to get an actual direct throttle position?

 
How do you get here? I'm in dash configuration, math channel tab and it's only giving me some options for pre-configured formulas, not letting me build my own formula.
That's in RS3 Analysis.

On the dash itself, yes, you have a much more limited formula set. A shame, because you can do some really great stuff in Analysis (like calculate remaining fuel based on historical fuel flow) but you can't do it on the dash. I assume it has something to do with its limited processing power.
 
OK....so I'm going to jump off into this "magic" world of digital technology, but have some questions before I try to implement this. Just as in my mechanical aptitude, I know just enough about technology to get in trouble. I'm sure I'm not the only "technophobe" on this forum, so I'll ask these questions here, for others like me:

I have the MXS 1.2 and a SmartyCam 3 Sport.

Every time I think about implementing these system changes/improvements, when I read " Leave your car on, open RaceStudio 3, and connect to your dash's wifi network. " I remember a post either here or on FB where someone connected their laptop to their AiM system and "lost" the RAW configurations that came with the car. If I remember correctly it was because they didn't have the RAW configs resident on their laptop/in their RS3?

So....is this a concern? What do I need to do to mitigate it?

I need me some learnin' ! :geek:
 
If you were to lose your config, you could download the one I posted above in post #2. But here's how to back it up:

1. Open RaceStudio 3 and go to the "Configurations" section (gear icon in top nav)
2. Create a new MXS 1.2 device if you haven't already, name it and save it
3. Connect to your dash's wifi and wait for the device to show in the bottom left
4. Click your MXS 1.2 device in the main list (right pane) and click "Receive" above

That'll download it. If you want to save it for later, click Export to save it to disk.
 
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Full disclosure, I'm using my laptop at my home to do the first two parts before I go to the car for 3 & 4.

I did 1, no problem.
I created a device (there were none) and named it "MXS1.2". But when I try to save it it says I have to pick a "page" before I can save it? And it gives me a new window with a list of pages available.
 
The config files will be different depending if you have a K-Line or CAN car. We should name them a little different to avoid confusion.
.
 
Someone pointed me towards this thread and I thought I could help out a little. I've set up a few AiM systems :)

There is no need for math channels. If you set the dash to output the brake pressure (which sounds low) and then just set the overlay graphic to have the max pressure as the full range. The same thing goes for whatever channel you want to use for TPS in the video. Hopefully there isn't something that I'm missing. With the SC3 protocol, you can put a ton of info on the video.

If I'm missing the mark, please tell me or ask about anything AiM.
 

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