Jones Counter Redesign

Tom,

the cap is a rubber piece, that can be removed.
It seal in grease and protect to rotating parts.
The shape is conical, diameter from 22 to 25 mm.
The covered nut has 19mm diameter.


Image without cap.


Image with cap.


Sketch of the sectioned hub.

Fabio

Fabio -

Your hub and mine appear to be nearly identical, except for the seal. My hub has a flat face seal, and the JO counter (and the new one) fit OK. The only remaining problem would be forks that are fat.

Fabio,
Great info you posted, nicely presented too I might add. I need a computer to do any presentable drafting.
The original JC is 22.5mm on the inside of the cup, and can grow 5mm or so to accept the grease cap you have. It will never fit all of them, but, more is certainly better.
I'll be re-drafting the rig this weekend, and will keep posting as things develop in the future.

Tom

quote:

Electronic counter could be a nice solution when it will be accepted as measuring device, this means that must be solved also the back and forward counting.

Fabio:
From your statement above I believe you must be a hard man to please! In the Veeder-Root A103-001 totalizer you have easy installation to all bicycles, instant zeroing, 12-mm high digits, crisp back-lighting, the best correction for overshoot, and direct display of meters or feet down to small fractions. Still you want a redesign so that you can thoughtlessly roll the wheel back through the zero on the rim!

"...thoughtlessly roll the wheel back...". I think the ability to roll a counter back when point has been over-shot is a great value.

As a measurer, when I am doing my measurement paperwork, I record what the counts should be at every mile point. If I go too far, I simply roll back to that point. My paperwork remains clean.

On the other hand, if I have to change the expected count on every point beyond where I just missed, that is erasing and re-entering, creating the possiblity for numeral transposition and other errors. Do that twice (or more) in a marathon course, and you have more potential for error. Even one or two clicks too far can cause issues.

I think Fabio is right on the money with his desire to do roll-backs in the case of over-shoots.

As a Certifier, I wouldn't want paperwork that had been adjusted due to overshoots. Very messy, and much harder to verify counts. Do Certifiers have any comments on receiving paperwork that has been "fixed" due to overshoots? I think my certifier would tell me to use a Jones, not electronic, if I had more than one over-shoot in every 5 courses, and I couldn't argue the point.

Duane:
Unfortunately, you misunderstood my response to Fabio and do not yet appreciate the capabilities of the Totalizer in overshoot correction. If you like the Jones in the latter regard, you will be ecstatic over the Totalizer.

If an unalert and thoughtless measurer with an electronic counter were to stop his bicycle and roll his wheel back without realizing what he had done, with bad luck the wheel might go through zero and a spurious count might be recorded. In a similar situation with the Jones there would be no problem, because the Jones goes into reverse automatically. It is this useful feature in the Jones that I guessed Fabio was calling for in the Totalizer.(I assumed he knew about the superior overshoot correction of the Totalizer.)

Many measurers like to correct for overshoot with the Jones by simply backing up the bicycle. (Note though this is disapprove of in the official manual.) However this is only practical for about 25 feet. If say the measurer has taken a wrong turning, he may be say 2500 feet off course. In the latter case the bicycle must be ridden back and to salvage the ride, additional readings and calculations must be done. The record is not clean.

Like the Jones, the Totalizer can be put in reverse and the bicycle backed up with no readings or calculations required. More importantly though and unlike the Jones, it can be ridden back in reverse mode indefinitely to any visually selected point. No readings or calculations are necessary and it is as if the overshoot or the turn off-course never happened. The measurer does not have to bother the certifier about it.

As a certifier I am not bothered by enroute minor mistakes by a measurer. As long as the measurer gives me a count at every point I can figure it out.

I consider this better than the measurer using enroute magic and then presenting me with a set of seemingly perfect data.

Pete:
Operating the Totalizer in reverse mode is no more magical than doing the same with the Jones by backing up the bicycle.

I beg to differ.

If my totalizer reads 272 and my wheel reads 0.37 revs, turning around is somewhat more complicated than simply turning the bike around.

Pete:
I am not clear as to why you are differing, but a perhaps a detailed example of the overshoot correction will clarify matters.

A measurer finds that he has taken a wrong turning and needs to go back several hundred feet to get back on course, but he is not sure exactly how far. He does not need to take a reading from his Totalizer, but he does needs to select a rim reading. Say he selects 0.1 because it is easy to remember. He then adjusts the wheel to this reading and turns the bike 180 degrees about this point. He selects decrement mode on the Totalizer, rides back until he is comfortably on course again, and stops at any point with a rim reading of 0.1. He again turns the bike 180 degrees about this point. Finally, he selects increment mode and rides off along the correct course without reading the Totalizer. His future readings will be exactly the same as if he never went off course.

Some measurers will find the above hard to believe, so I should have liked to have given a demonstration at the Honolulu Meeting. Regretably, I will not now be attending.

Neville,

I'm confused how this would work. Let's say a rider leaves the correct course at point A, where the rim reading was 0, and for simplicity's sake let's say he rides off course for only .1 revolutions. If he turns his bike around at this point, won't his rim reading be .2 when he gets back to point A? It needs to be back to 0 at point A, right?

As I was writing a reply to Neville, the methodology became clearer, but not crystal-clear.

I find I am off-course and stop. My wheel has gone .75 of a revolution beyond the Totalizer incrementing. I should turn around without allowing my tire to spin, so when I have the Totalizer in decrement, I have .75 of a revolution before Totalizer begins counting down. That way, in my mind, I could ride back to anywhere on the course FOLLOWING THE EXACT ROUTE I RODE TO THAT POINT, and turn around to continue. That makes sense, but differs from the "select a rim reading".

If I select a rim reading, I am revolving my tire to an arbitrary location, which is different than actual revolutions. This creates inaccuracy, I believe.

What am I missing?

I see a bit more clearly, I think.

I would have to spin my tire to give myself .75 of a revolution before decrimentation, not keep it locked.

Still don't see how I can select an "easy to remember" rim reading.

Mark:
Your example is rather farcical since the normal correction would be to roll the wheel back to zero disconnecting the Totalizer first if the reading needs to be preserved.
Your confusion with the procedure described in my last post is because you were tempted to cut it short because of your farcical example.
To begin his correction the measurer must first choose a rim reading. He can use any, but suppose that as in your example he chooses 0.1. He sets the wheel on 0.1, turns the bicycle 180 degrees about this point, goes into decrement mode, and heads for A. As he passes A the Totalizer reading decrements by one and the rim reading as you correctly state is 0.2. However he cannot stop at this point but must continue 0.9 rev to his chosen rim reading of 0.1. Again he turns the bike, goes into increment mode, and returns to A. As he passes A the meter reading increments by one back to what it was when he first passed A, and the rim reading is again 0.0.

Duane:
The measurer rotates his wheel along the course route to his selected rim reading for the correction before he turns his bike for the first time.

Okay, now it makes sense. I no longer see it as a convoluted method, manageable by only the most dedicated measurers.

Now, where do I get a Totalizer?

This all sounds good, but I feel it would be confusing to the average measurer. When one who understands this process well and others have a hard time following - it may be time to see the old way is best.


I'm not saying this is not good, but what's wrong with the JO counter.

I don't see that this is much different than riding a nice round number of counts beyond where I should have stopped, freezing the front wheel, turning around, riding the same nice round number of counts in the opposite direction, then setting the point I should have set in the first place, then freezing the wheel, turning around, and continuing along my way.

Of course in doing so I don't have to worry about whether I stopped the wheel in the right part of the revolution so that it didn't record a spurious revolution or fraction thereof.

I appreciate the effort that has gone into developing alternative course measurement methods, but having tried at least one of them a number of times, I think the good old mechanical counter is hard to beat.

I would love to only use the Jones, but as everyone is aware, at the moment, a 6-digit with the old mounting hardware is unavailable. A horse was easy to care for, and people learned how to ride a horse early in life. Now, however, that once "new-fangled contraption" is accepted by all but a few.

No one said the JO was not good. But, so we don't get caught without our supply (one never knows for certain that a single supplier will always supply our parts) readily available, an alternative should be available, and we should be familiar with it, even if we don't want to use it as our primary tool.

I think Neville explained it sufficiently for me. Now that I understand it, it is not rocket science, and I will get one to use, either primary or backup. But, I am down to one JO. I always want a backup avaliable to me, so I have to go with the Totalizer, as soon as I find out where to get one.

Duane:
The A103-001 Totalizer costs $107.96 including shipping (unidirectional models cost much less)and can be ordered from:

http://www.veeder-rootcounters.com/content.aspx?id=66

If you do not have a magnet and sensor, one can be ordered for $14 shipping free from:

http://ecom1.planetbike.com/8000_1.html

The Totalizer can be used immediately as a reliable revolution counter by simply conecting the leads from the sensor to terminals 1 and 3.

Jay:
You omitted to say that after a long overshoot correction with the Jones you have recalculate all future targets.
The only electronic counter you have tested is the $7 Bell -- the Protege and Totalizer are much easier to use.

I guess I'm so accustomed to having a unit that will not reset itself that it doesn't bother me to change a few digits if I make an error. That's why I will generally stop my errant path at a multiple of 500 counts- so I don't need to change the last three digits of what I've calculated.

A far more common occurrence, at least for me, than going off course, is overshooting my point by a couple hundred counts. I like being able to simply back up the bike for a few revolutions of the front wheel, and a counter that is capable of doing that will work better for me. Having to switch the counter to another mode to have it count backwards means you'd have to switch it again to make it count forward again, which is one more thing to have to remember to do.

I'd take a look at the Totalizer if I had a better idea of exactly how it worked. At this point, however, I'm not convinced that using a cyclocomputer of any kind is a superior method than using a mechanical counter like the Jones Counter.

I don't agree with Duane that there a just a few that don't like the idea of the electronic counter. I have seen first hand that a new measurer with the help of an experience measure did not set up the bike properly and got real bad results. The JO counter is a nobrainer and your least likely to make a mistake when doing the math. Again, I'm not saying this totalizer is a bad idea, but I believe you still have to set up the rim and it's easy for some but a lot of people just don't get how it's done.

I would suggest to Neville that sometime in the spring that we have a couple of workshops on the electronic counter. Neville if interested please contact me via email.

Jay:
With the superior display of the Protege and the Totalizer and the fact that unlike with the Jones you are always looking for the same standard numbers means that you are less likely to overshoot.

Gene:
I will post a simlified method for very accurately marking the rim in decimals that takes only 5 or 10 min.

I have used the JO from Day 1. I like it. It works fine, until it doesn't. I have owned 3. One was the newest version from Paul. While the new mount works on some bikes, it worked on neither of mine, even with modifications, so I returned it. Paul was kind enough to give me a full refund, in spite of my modifications.

While on a measurement, my co-measurer (marathon course) had his counter torque and freeze. Able to get it functional, but when will it torque again, and die? I loaned him my backup for some courses he measured.

My Unit #1 gave me nasty disparities on each leg of my calibration course, which seems to indicate internal gears shot, as it gave me approx 1000, plus and minus 200, additional counts for each leg. Unit is worthless.

My backup was loaned-out due to another JO malfunctioning. I have nothing, and my only source had a product I can't use. My business could fail, due to no counter. Fortunately, I was able to get my loaned-out counter back that day.

I have ordered a Totalizer, and will report to all how it works. Necessity is the mother of open-mindedness, to paraphrase.

When the new Super Duper Riegal Slooper is available, I will order at least one of them, also. I do over 30 courses a year, and can't afford to be without at least two counters. (I backup all my computer files, also)

Thank you, Neville, for offering an alternative product for our "profession".

Another alternative is the chain drive counter.

I recently dismounted and inspected mine. It had accumulated 586 km - 364 miles - and absolutely no wear was visible under high magnification. The delrin chain and gear looked brand new.

It's cheap, operates exactly as a Jones Counter should and is readable from left to right.

Neville,

While my example may have been farcical, I like to take examples to their extreme, because it is often easier to understand what's going on. It worked for me because I now understand how it works. I think it helped Duane understand as well.

My main issue with electronic counters is that I would always worry that the magnet missed a count, or that somewhere on the course I backed over the magnet to get an extra count. I would always want to use my Jones as a backup to make sure that didn't happen. But if I'm always going to use my Jones in addition to the electronic counter, what's the point of using the electronic counter?

But I can now see how I could use it to make life simpler. As I'm measuring the course I could completely rely on the electronic counter to take measurements, backtrack on the course, reset to zero when needed, etc. But as I'm doing all of this I would keep records of every Jones count along the way. I just wouldn't do any calculations with them or use them to make any decisions. When I get home I could go through the fairly complicated process of using the Jones count record that I took to make sure there were no issues with the electronic counter measurement. If there were, I would have to go back out to the course to make corrections, but I expect that's not going to happen often, if ever.

Mark:
I was not criticizing you for using a farcical example.
Like you I was cautious about accepting the electronic counter, and road many hundreds of miles and measured several courses using several of them with the Jones simultaneously. Your plan to use an electronic counter simultaneously with the Jones makes sense except that I would only read the Jones on one continuous ride of the course. Immediately afterwards, I would multiply the electronic reading by the gearing of your particular Jones (cts/rev) and check that this is identical to the net Jones count. In time you may acquire the confidence to dispense with this check.

NEW COUNTER UPDATE

Tom has completed 16 designs so far. Each time one gets done we find some problem we had not addressed. The biggest one is adequate clearance between fork, wheel and counter. The last one, #16, looked promising but we are thinking about going back to #12 and developing it further. While it is tempting to say “it will be just another week before we are ready” it’s too much like crying wolf.

Each time we decide to make a final change it seems to add a week, since Tom works full time, and the drafting of each new design takes up lots of his free time. The design will be done when it’s done.

Once we have a final design we will work with the fabricator to see whether they can make it as we have it designed. They will give us a quotation for fabrication, and a delivery time. We expect the tooling cost to be several thousand dollars, and the cost per drive unit to depend on how many we order. This is why it is taking longer than we would like. We must get it right the first time. While it only exists on paper we can change it – once we have 500 or a thousand on hand we are stuck with them, so they had better be right. Once we give the fabricator a check and the go-ahead it will be about two months before we will receive any drive units. Most of this time will be spent by the fabricator in design and construction of the stamping/punching tooling.

We’ll receive a few pre-production units and will check them out before approving delivery of the full order.

There has never been a counter which fits 100 percent of all bicycles. Ours will be no exception. We are striving for a design which will fit at least as many as did the original Jones, and the earlier JO’s.

Where do we stand? We’re working on it and, as usual, we think it will be a week or so before we contact the fabricator. Updates will appear from time to time.

Your plan to use an electronic counter simultaneously with the Jones makes sense except that I would only read the Jones on one continuous ride of the course.

Continuous rides are not what I'm concerned about. Stopping, starting, backtracking, etc. is where I'm afraid I'll mess something up and add/subtract an extra revolution. I wouldn't feel comfortable relying on the electronic counter without a Jones count record of the entire measuring process to confirm, at least the first few times.

quote:

Originally posted by Tom Riegel:
I'm working on a new counter based on the metal gear we've used for years, with a minor modification to aid in assembly. Cost should come in on-par with the old ones.

I've contacted a number of prototyping companies to see if they would be interested in producing the metal gear assembly. Most said they would not be interested because of the highly complex nature and low volume of the pieces.

One manufacurer has expressed an interest, and I sent him my counter to evaluate. I expect an estimate to produce 300 gears sometime in mid-August. Production time will be determined then.

The counter I'm proposing will have an identical ring gear (yellow) and retainer cup (magenta) and a modified baseplate (white).

The remaining gear (blue) should be easy to obtain in low volumes. I need to look into that. My hope is to have all the pieces available in a couple months if the price is right.

Tom,

I suggest you ask Justn, Jane or katz for their input as to who will try your new counter. The BB us not the best source for finding active measurers.

Regards,

Gene

Dear Paolo,

Take a look at www.jonescounter.com