Skytrak has problems registering shots with some shaft colors...

[apljb]

I've had my unit for several months now with no issues at all.

Last week, I picked up some new irons and wanted to test them against my old ones and against the Flightscope that I tested them on before ordering, so I had a good idea of distances before playing with them for the first time.

Long story short, I took my Skytrak to the range where I was picking up the clubs and had a real problem with shots registering or when they did, registering sensible shots that matched what I was seeing from the ball flight and from the Flightscope. I walked away very concerned about whether there was a problem with my unit.

Several sessions later, at home, I've been having a lot of difficulty getting shots to register; whereas previously, I've hardly ever seen a shot dropped, since last week, I've been having some spells where only 1 in 10 or 20 shots would be picked up.

It finally occurred to me to wonder whether the new irons were the issue, so, I switched to my SW - no problems whatsoever.

I tried my wife's spare 4 iron (she plays men's clubs, so not that strange), no problems.

Back to my new irons, back to loads of missed shots.

My new irons have white (in the neck area) graphite shafts (Miyasaki Kena Blue 7 - if you're interested) and I wondered whether that was causing the unit to have difficulties reading the ball?

I tried taping over the shaft with some blue electrical tape that I had lying around, but no joy. I tried covering the ferrule, the hosel, and the back of the shaft. No joy.

Flipped back to my steel shaft sand iron, no problems, back to my wife's black graphite 4 iron, no problem. Back to my irons, barely a shot picked up.

In desperation, I went and found some black electrical tape and taped up the shaft, from the ferrule on up. Instant gratification.

I progressively shortened and shortened the black tape on the shaft, when I got down to about an inch up from the ferrule, I started having strange readings and mostly missed shots. Put some more tape back on, and every shot registered.

I'm sure Seth will pick up with a better explanation, but, my assumption is that some shaft colors don't provide enough contrast between the ball and the shaft in the background for the image recognition to work properly. I guess the blue tape looked almost white to the infrared, whereas the black tape allowed the unit to differentiate. I've never had a problem with a steel shaft.

Attached is a photo of the shaft taped up, so you can see how far up the shaft I had to go

Hope that helps someone else...

[davray666]

That's both very interesting and useful info. Thanks for taking the time to post.

[SkyTrak_Seth]

Thanks for the investigation. A long time ago we had white club heads to deal with, and now white shafts - Arg! I would imagine that the solution will be the same for the shafts as with the club heads - move the ball back behind the laser dot by about a ball length (to the right looking down on it). That way the ball gets into the image but the club head and shaft do not. Obviously, you are seeing this more with irons because the ball is not launching off the face as fast as with a driver, so there is not as much separation. But yes you are correct, too many white objects in the image.

[apljb]

Thanks, Seth.

I was most struck by the fact that it wasn't just my white shaft that seemed to cause a problem, but that the deep (royal) blue tape didn't work either, which is a fairly common color for graphite shafts.

Happy to also note that Seth's suggestion of moving the ball 'back' (to the right, for a righty) of the dot solved the problem consistently. I'd tried moving it forward, but not back...

[smokey]

Rather than tape your clubs did you try a different colour ball, say a bright yellow one?

[apljb]

No, for two reasons.

1) There have been a couple of mentions that coloured range balls have problems and the recommendation has been to use clean, new white balls.
2) I only practice at home using Pro V1x balls, as that's what I play on course, so I want to see the same numbers as I'll get IRL, so I didn't have any other choices laying around.

[davray666]

Skytrak uses IR light and an IR pas filter. That means white and red balls look white and all other colors are some shade of gray.
So a yellow ball probably turns up as a grey ball, depending on the reflectivity of the coating.

[davray666]

Another interesting point for those that are skilled golfers is that the trig point for the 2 cameras works like this.
A laser line is projected towards the player. It's IR so you can't see it. When an object that is bright enough pases the line, the electronics will calculate a delay and then fire the cameras.
The reason this could be a problem for skilled golfers is that the shaft will lead and pas the line before the ball does. If the shaft reflection is bright enough it will be picked up as the ball and therefore the cameras will take the picture before the ball gets in to the field of view.
I have done a lot of tests with my cameras and chrome shafts are mostly OK while various stickers that we see on clubs these days are not.
Best is to remove the sticker. If not possible, cover it with tape. What tape is suitable is difficult to say since even black tape that is glossy will look white to the Camera. If Skytrak would have shown us the images taken for debug purposes, it would be easier to figure what is going wrong. But It is what it is so we have to keep on guessing.