GC3 has ball locked then I put down my driver/putter to hit and ball disappears

[DinFL]

Any help would be greatly appreciated! My problem is either when I tee up using the birtees or when I use my hybrid or putter off the mat, I place the ball down and it is locked in, I then line up to hit my shot and when my club is directly behind the ball, the looking for ball icon comes up and it is like it can’t read the ball anymore. One thing that works about 50% of the time is placing my club a little behind the ball, just thinking it still picks up the ball and can see the club face cleanly as well? I have tried putting the ball towards the back, the front, the sides. I’ve tried black shoes, white shoes, no change. It doesn’t happen with my irons though. The only thing I can think of is something with all of these clubs having a black head. They are my only clubs that do and the only clubs with the issue but I have no idea how to fix that! They are brand new pings and for a unit over 7k it can’t be my clubs... Some details of my setup and clubs with other things I’ve tried;
-using a gungho mat and hitting strip
-gc3 is on 1” Eva foam mat with same turf as mat with no gap
-using green birtees with a green string attached to a claw that is out of sight
-ping driver and ping hybrid, putter are black
-I have no windows in my garage and have 3 light track lighting above that have Philips hue bulbs where I have tried numerous lighting configurations to see if that fixes it and nothing worked better from daylight to super dim

All I want to do is enjoy my sim that I have dreamed about for over 3 years and finally pulled the very expensive trigger to get! I definitely don’t need or want to adjust the way I set up my golf shot because I have black heads, please tell me I’m missing something! I have a support ticket into foresights and will be calling tomorrow. Any suggestions are welcome!

[KidDoc]

Does it happen with those clubs on the range?

If not, something is up in the room.

[Baller]

Using a white tee? Either of those clubs white? With putter, are your shoes close and white? Try barefoot or other shoes and see if still happens.

[secfincorp]

So I am having a similar issue as well. I can hit a wedge or any club and get a reading every time if I swing very very easy, when i ramp up speed I am missing shots galore I have been on with technical support and have tried everything including sending log files to them which I am awaiting a response. (shoes, lights, background etc)

****I dont know if you tried this yet but maybe when addressing the ball you are making it move slightly? I am going to screw my mat to the floor and hover my club to see if maybe when i swing harder the ball is moving ever so slightly.

btw, they told me to take it outside and hit shots to see if it works in a different environment which I haven't done yet. No time but i also need to use it in my space not outside.

keep us posted I feel the same way. what a pain to deal with.

[secfincorp]

ok so i had a chance to play around with my BLP and when I turned it on today there was a new firmware that downloaded and installed. I also screwed down my mat and hit some 8 irons and it seems to be ok. this was not with FSX software running it was just on the unit itself. I also made an effort to go easy around the ball as to not move around it or waggle hitting the mat.....
maybe that might fix your issue. I will report back but thinking i may have figured it out

[DinFL]

Thanks for the replies everyone. So I tried messing around again this morning using fsx play vs 2020. I also tried moving my GC3 a little further away so it can really get a clear shot of the club. So this is what I am thinking. Yesterday with ball disappearing using fsx 2020, when I put my club down and the green screen comes up looking for the ball, I can see the bottom camera flashing like it can’t pick up on my club. When I moved my club face back the camera can clearly see the face and stayed lit and locked on but as soon as it didn’t have a clear shot of my club, the ball was gone. Today, with the slight adjustments I made above, I saw the camera flashing way less, so it obviously had better vision of my club face, but it was still happening. The biggest difference was in fsx play it doesn’t lose the ball too. So the green light stayed locked on whether the bottom camera was flickering or not. I hit a bunch of balls on the range with driver and hybrid and had almost zero misses. Then went on to butterfield and made it to hole 7 I believe, putting for birdie and the game just completely disappeared, gone… App just closed itself. Opened fsx play again and it brought up do you want to continue you round, I click yes, putt for birdie again and it crashes again.

Still heard nothing back from foresight and to answer some questions above;

-I tried white shoes, black shoes, flip flops, no shoes- same results
-my birtees are green and haven’t tried any other color
-my putter face is white but black head

Im not sure that my mat is moving, I have a 4x5 gung-ho mat and it’s pretty sturdy, although not velcroed or locked down because I have to move it when I’m done. It’s also pushed against 1” Eva foam so it’s pretty locked in but I guess it’s worth a shot to try Velcro or something.

It seems like fsx play actually let me hit shots with almost zero misses but I can’t even make through a round before it crashes. I’m really starting to regret not going with a uneekor. I’m not against buying other software but I would think the GC3 would work best in its own software so again I’m scratching my head..

[secfincorp]

Che k the mat and did you get a firmware update? I screwed my mat down and got a firmware updat today and it is working flawlessly. I couldn’t believe the mat made such a difference.

[DinFL]

Yea, I did the update yesterday. I will try the Velcro because I have to move my mat to park.

[richerod]

Have u tried it outdoors?

[DinFL]

Not yet… I bought it pretty much for the sim. I am thinking it is not the unit itself but the unit picking up something behind me maybe. I keep messing around with it to try to figure it out. Fsx play definitely seems to work better though which really doesn’t make sense

[Karazy]

My Gc3 yesterday was not working for anything above 65mph yesterday. I was about to throw it at the wall but took a closer look and a spider had decided that the bottom camera was a good place to make a web.

[DinFL]

wow! very interesting! I actually am thinking that my bottom camera is catching the laser that shoots across my garage to stop it from closing on anything but I still haven't got it 100% pegged down to what it is but it has gotten a lot better

[richerod]

Hope u get this resolved or at least a definitive cause. I have a buddy who is on the cusp of pulling the trigger on a GC3.

[Bryson of Bogey Golf]

Give Foresight tech service a call if you haven't already. I haven't called in a while (now I just email the rep that had helped me out a couple times earlier this year). Earlier in the year you might have to wait on hold for 30 mins but once you get through the service I've had has been awesome. There might be some back and forth troubleshooting required via email that could take 1 day to respond but I've always had consistent follow up. A couple of times they've lined up calls with me to patch into the pc so they could then do the discovery themselves... one time was an issue with the update... the other time was user error

[PracticeTime]

Karazy 's post above about a spider blocking the camera helped me out last weekend. Noticed a lot of missed shots while playing a round with a friend so decided to look at the camera lenses. I could see each lens had small fibers covering them (most likely from the mat). It wasn't completely covered but enough to cause the cameras to lose focus on the ball. Cleaned the lenses with a microfiber towel and played the rest of the round with no missed shots. Now I clean them before every session.

Unfortunately my wife's woods, hybrids, and putter are white so they still have some mised shots, but much better than before.