Karen
Well I did post the comments on this issue. Our testing of the one piece unit
about 3 or 4 years ago --long before anyone else heard or it-- proved to be
un-reliable. The horse has to have a ROUND body for the belt tranmitter to
stay in place.
On some horses the best location for the pickup of the EKG is NOT where the
one piece belt monitor forces you to install it.
Not useful for other applications..
and it cannot be use for driving or on a tread mill etc,
and its costly to replace when it goes dead.
The lead wires can be manged , just insure they are UNDER the pad, not out
flapping around. If you have enough lenght on the LONG lead take a turn -
wrap - around the girth, and keep the lead away from the rigging ie metal..
dont lace it through the buckle.. will surely rub the lead.
WHat happens: is the belt monitor will work when the horse does not move..
just fine..but when the horse moves you get motion artifact because it is
very difficult to hold the molded one piece unit TIGHT on the horse. IT goes
across the shoulder and under the girth on one end...or some put the whole
thing under the girth.. the tranmitter has one end not held inplace with any
pressure, thus as the shoulder moves back and forth the tranmitter slips and
moves in relation to the horse. The electrodes MUST be held tight to the skin
of the horse.. to pick up the electrical signal. Since the electrodes are
made from carbon silicon rubber they produce static when rubbed, thus bad
readings.
We DO have problems at times with the location and stability of our
electrodes.. that is why we have new styles, to reduce the slipping and stop
the pin pulling.
Some riders indicated the belt system was working great ie the horse was
running up the hill at 120.. only thing it did not change, until the horse
stopped then it jumped up to 160.. also the polar based units update
slower..about 6 seconds, the new SD units update in 2 seconds.
To insure the monitor is infact reading the actual hr without motion
artifact, work on an undulating trail. watch the readings -as the horse goes
up and down the sight hills at a trot the monitor should track these changes
in effort.
While I surely agree a system without wires would be great IF IT WORKED as
well as what I have now..
after developing the V-MAX - from TI -and after 7 years of using a HRM I
think I know a bit about these things. I think more then most... other then
TI.
IF I could put a product out that I would USE and stand behind with a money
back garnantee, AND ride out there with the customers ...I would do it.
I just can not offer a product that I would not use.
Now, FYI , I am testing a one piece hrm tranmitter from another company. It
has a REPLACEABLE battery.. SO it can be used in our HEARTBELT... and offered
to those riders who want to use the band system as a replacement for the
throw-away polar transmitter. Of course we will NOT garnantee the
application... just the equipment.
FYI - another issue, the V-MAX is WATER RESISTANT..there is NO WATER -PROOF
monitor..NONE of the rec watches are WATERPROOF, the polar transmitter IS...
anything with a seam that can be disassembled CANNOT be called WATERPROOF.
However, IF you properly re-assemble the components, with O ring inplace
and the use of wateresistant silcon grease, the units will not leak.
We get some real trashed monitors back with floaters inside...used induced
repaires.
Regards
Roger
VMAXEPT