# DIY trail counter



## ocean breathes salty (Oct 1, 2006)

I hope this might be of some use to a club or organization somewhere along the line.

I have wired up a DIY trail counter for HMBA (AUS) to get some usage statistics for our trail at Awaba. After 3 weeks of running so far, all seems to be working quite well (even after all the rain we have had) so I expect it will only ever need some TLC after a bush fire.

Hopefully this sort of data will be able to give us some hard data to fall back on for things like grant applications.

Info on how to build it is here:

http://pi11wizard.wordpress.com/2010/12/08/diy-mountain-bike-trail-counter/


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## MartyW (Dec 13, 2004)

click on "Home"


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## ocean breathes salty (Oct 1, 2006)

MartyW said:


> click on "Home"


Link fixed, sorry about that.


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## dburatti (Feb 14, 2004)

Nice! Thanks for posting this. Upper management was asking about trail counters, and I wanted to try something without taking a chunk out of my budget.

D


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## bsieb (Aug 23, 2003)

ocean breathes salty said:


> I hope this might be of some use to a club or organization somewhere along the line.
> 
> I have wired up a DIY trail counter for HMBA (AUS) to get some usage statistics for our trail at Awaba. After 3 weeks of running so far, all seems to be working quite well (even after all the rain we have had) so I expect it will only ever need some TLC after a bush fire.
> 
> ...


It would be awesome if you could post a schematic drawing or wiring diagram, your instructions are great but a visual would make things clearer. Any idea how much power (wattage) the whole unit consumes? This is a great idea!


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## ocean breathes salty (Oct 1, 2006)

bsieb said:


> It would be awesome if you could post a schematic drawing or wiring diagram.
> 
> I meant to do one earlier and didn't get around to it. I'l definitely add in a diagram at some point.
> 
> Any idea how much power (wattage) the whole unit consumes? This is a great idea!


It draws around 56-46mA for the sensors (56 at rest and 46 when it triggers) and another 25mA for the counter LED according to the literature I found for it.

So it looks like the alignment LED costs 10mA and I assume the power LED would do be similar. Since I removed those two LED's, it is probably using more like 61mA for the whole unit (including counter). I haven't verified current draw with a multi-meter however. I just placed the counter close enough to vehicle access points so that I can carry out a new battery and swap them over semi-regularly.


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## bsieb (Aug 23, 2003)

If my math is correct, this design would require about 26000mA hours to run for a year? That can be supplied with two 6 volt alkaline lantern batteries. We use a couple units now that run for a full year on 4 D cell batteries.

I'm thinking I could house the units and batteries in smallish (M60) ammo cans which could be bolted to a tree and locked. Probably run about $150 each. Hmmm...


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## Loren_ (Dec 3, 2006)

Nice.

It's a little more expensive, but using something like http://www.dataloggerstore.com/p8194/lascar_el-usb-5.php instead of the counter module would let you track usage plus answer questions like what are the most popular times and days, what's the peak usage in an hour, and so on. Plus it would take less power. On the down side, you'd have to carry a laptop out to read the usage. Or buy two loggers and swap 'em.


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## ocean breathes salty (Oct 1, 2006)

Loren_ said:


> Nice.
> 
> It's a little more expensive, but using something like http://www.dataloggerstore.com/p8194/lascar_el-usb-5.php instead of the counter module would let you track usage plus answer questions like what are the most popular times and days, what's the peak usage in an hour, and so on. Plus it would take less power. On the down side, you'd have to carry a laptop out to read the usage. Or buy two loggers and swap 'em.


Now that is a really nice addition, I might have a play with one of those in the not to distant future. Thanks for the link!


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## ocean breathes salty (Oct 1, 2006)

Here's the wiring diagram:


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## pinkrobe (Jan 30, 2004)

Wow! I've seen trail counters for up to $2500. With a solar panel and batteries to power the sensor, we could slap one of these on a trail for $250 all in.


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## zachi (Jul 25, 2006)

Wow, the counter looks totally star trek.

We use a wildview game camera $50. Not only does it record number of people but who and what type of user. Great to place at trouble spots as well.

zachi anderson
www.foresttrailsalliance.org


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## pinkrobe (Jan 30, 2004)

zachi said:


> Wow, the counter looks totally star trek.
> 
> We use a wildview game camera $50. Not only does it record number of people but who and what type of user. Great to place at trouble spots as well.
> 
> ...


Is it this one? http://www.wildviewcam.com/HTML/product_xt5.html

That's pretty cool.


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## zachi (Jul 25, 2006)

Yeah that is the one. I paid $50 each on ebay though. Water proof and most importantly LIGHT WEIGHT. I have moultrie i-40s as well. They are $150 ebay but take infrared photos (no flash) and high quality video and sequence shots. We use these to monitor equipment and tool stashes as well as set them up for sequence shots during construction (I photo per min.)
z


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