There is not enough light issues - Trackman 6.0 Impact Location

[TheMikeRausch]

Those with deep and dark simulator bays, what are you doing to combat the issues to get the hitting area 4' wide 10' deep area all the way to the screen lit up to get to "350 LUX" whatever that means? Trackman isn't picking up any shots, and I have all my track lighting aimed at the hitting area. It's not dark by any means. Disappointed TM didn't figure out how to open aperture via a firmware update on the camera to allow more light in.

file:///C:/Program%20Files%20(x86)/TrackMan%20Performance%20Studio/Modules/Resources/ImpactLocation-Setup_FAQ.pdf

[LEO MODE]

I bought a small light and it works pretty good. But I cant tell you the accuracy yet as I am still testing it and I need to precisely measure my club first.

[TheMikeRausch]

I mean, the bay isn’t dark by any means 350 LUX seems almost impossible to achieve. Darn near need a spotlight in the bay, then you can’t see the impact screen projection.

[LEO MODE]

You just need to light the hitting area not 10’ long.

[Dax]

Nice room btw!

[FaultyClubs]

...lit up to get to "350 LUX" whatever that means...

LUX is a unit of light intensity over a given area.

350 is fairly bright, think office or kitchen. Certainly brighter than most people's living rooms.

Sounds from Leo's comment the whole room doesn't need to be that bright though. That helps a lot since for a fixed wattage bulb narrowing the beam angle will increase the lux. Shorter distance increases lux also (more dramatic with a wide beam angle).

[LEO MODE]

I am a little lazy to upload photos but I bought a small 30W stand light and it worked fine. But impact location seemed a bit off so I don't know if it's the lighting issue or club measurement option issue. Trackman also told me that it could be due to low lighting but then they shouldn't even show the impact location if they're not confident (just like how other data don't come out).

I will set aside a day and test it out thoroughly sometime end of this week or possibly next week and tell you some findings.

[LEO MODE]

One update testing the impact location in my house. First of all, you really need a precise measurement to measure the horizontal and vertical distance from the center to the hosel. I did the best as I can and here are my results:

Wedge: close.
Iron: Pretty close.
Driver: Way off.

I have to go out in the range and test it again. But just from my testing, driver seemed really off. My 6 iron seemed to be the closest of all.
Also, in the room, during the daytime with all my blinds opened and with the 30W stand light, my driver shot reading was only about 1~2 out of 10 shots. Irons about 6 out of 10 shots. Wedge about half of times. YMMV on this one since it's all about the brightness though.
With my blinds shut and in the evening, the impact location would not come out at all even with my lights on and 30W. Trackman did recommend me to get a ceiling LED strip light. I will probably get that soon. Otherwise getting impact location is almost impossible in darkness.

Will update once I go out and test it.

[LEO MODE]

Another update on the lighting. There is a Trackman manual on how to set up the lighting.

https://trackman.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/article_attachments/360006507053/ImpactLocation-Setup_FAQ.pdf

My update above was without reading that manual. After reading the manual and trying to light the hitting area properly, the impact location did pick up so much more. And I had to use the light they recommended than one I bought from Amazon. But I honestly think any bright LED light will be able to do it.

I am doing more testing for the accuracy on the impact location and possibly a little more on different types of clubs, but all I can say is having 1 light could do it for most people. My room is fairly dark at night and just have a very dimmed LED setting, but just by using that light Trackman recommended helped me pick up the impact location quite substantially.

I actually bought another light so I will test more to see, but one thing I noticed was 1 light wasn’t able to capture the driver shots a lot. So I will try with 2 lights now and update here.

[Dax]

Too bad on the lighting issue and hopefully they can work through it. The one thing I note is that the picture of the club that TM produces is pretty identical to what you are hitting. If I recall you also needed to input the club dimensions (also wonder if that could make up some of the small differences you note? Great unbiased testing as always Leo!

[LEO MODE]

Thanks. I noticed a lot of people who is using this impact location is not even bothered to change the settings. But since I have HMT and I also used Dr. Scholls, I can definitely tell that Trackman was pretty off especially on a driver.

[LEO MODE]

Trackman officially recommended this and I bought it. You also need to buy the stand. I am receiving it this week. Will update after testing.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1283186-REG/genaray_sp_e_500d_spectroled_essential_500_daylight.html

[LEO MODE]

In regards to the impact location output, I can confirm that 2 lights are better than 1 but the difference wasn’t substantial (at least with the light Trackman recommended).

I tested in the total dark condition just with a couple of LED can lights on my ceiling, at like 8pm. I would say irons were captured about 8-9 times out of 10, where as driver was captured about 5-6 times out of 10. With 1 light I believe it was about 3-4 times. So not a lot of difference for the extra light at $150.

However, if you already have a bright room or an extra light, your result might vary.

Finally as with the accuracy of the impact location, recently I’ve been testing with a default setting just to compare vs HMT and Dr.Scholls. And again the result still stands. I would get some close to real result at times, but also off results.

My recommendation is that it’s not really suitable for the fitter doing fitting for living. I was able to confirm that if I spent extra time doing an accurate measurement on each of my clubs or calibrate to HMT result (although HMT is off too sometimes but way less than Trackman) the result got so much better, and maybe for an user like me who only have a 1 set of clubs it could be helpful. But it is still not a concrete believable result for me since it was not consistent at least 8-9 times out of 10 (since impact location measurement can change the result dramatically by a couple of millimeters off from a toe shot to a heel shot) and requires a lot of precision and meticulous output.

It is still a very good feature and once you dialed in your club setting I am sure it could be valuable for game improvement but I think Trackman needs to work on this to tune in more with an update for now.

[clubchampx9]

For those interested, I purchased this kit on Amazon and now every shot captures Impact Location for all clubs on my TM4. I hope this helps - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[LEO MODE]

For those interested, I purchased this kit on Amazon and now every shot captures Impact Location for all clubs on my TM4. I hope this helps - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Wow good to hear. I spent double the money and if yours is better I will be crying on my bed. Because it looks like Trackman recommended light has 500 LEDs vs your 336 LEDs. Maybe my room is much darker so even 500 LEDs are still insufficient.

How has your impact location accuracy been? Did you alter settings for each club? Did you use Dr Scholls to verify? I recently discovered some great ways to replicate close-to-real impact location by alyering the setting for each club and I will post that soon. I am getting very close to accurate result even in a dark indoor environment (cuz more light the better).

I also contacted Trackman R&D team to see if my method is viable so I’ll update soon. So far very close. I also had success probably because I have HMT too to compare the result.

[clubchampx9]

I used impact tape to verify and so far so good I attached a 7 iron pic

[LEO MODE]

So no altering in setup and most of your shots come out like that? That definitely wasn’t my case as they were pretty off especially being more heel-ly.

[Tbraden32]

For those interested, I purchased this kit on Amazon and now every shot captures Impact Location for all clubs on my TM4. I hope this helps - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

How are you guys mounting your lights for Trackman- over head above you or on the sides aiming toward the hitting area?

I’ve seen both on their website.