Bit OT - accurate timing

[irving2008]

At the moment, my general thoughts are based around a couple of Cubloc modules.

Start line would involve an infrared break beam (or possibly just a switch activated by a small bar/lever), and a time gets recorded once the racer breaks the beam. This time would then be stored onto a backup (cubloc have a SD card module), and then also printed (I'm thinking small thermal printer for this bit).
The racer number would also be entered, and stored along with the time.

Finish line would also involve a break beam, with the time being read into a computer, aswell as another back-up made.

Then once the race is over, either the backup or barcodes are entered into the computer, to provide accurate race times.


My main problem just now is the accurate timing part of it.

A PC has 1mS resolution inbuilt available to software applications but are you looking for something not PC based? What would be the interface to your system?