Timer setup overview

Learn about the steps to create a timer, how to determine which timer to select, and how the timer records data.

Click in the Tools palette to access the Timer Setup panel.

Timer configuration steps

Setting up a timer consists of six guided steps in Timer Setup. After completing each step, click Next to move to the next step.

1. Select a Pre-Configured Timer (default) or Build your own timer. Pre-Configured Timer works for most applications.

   Note

   If a timer already exists, you need to click to delete the existing timer.

2. Select the timing devices for the timer. Only the timing devices connected in Hardware Setup appear.

3. Click the menu to select a timer. Only timers that work with the selected timing devices are visible.

   Tip

   See the Which timer to use section to help decide which timer to use for your experiment.

4. Select the measurements that you want to be visible in the display measurement selectors. The measurements selected by default work for most applications.

5. Enter the parameters for your experiment setup.

   Tip

   Click the link for the timer in the Which timer to use section for instructions on how to measure the parameters.

6. Give the timer a custom name, or use the default name.

Once you have created a timer, you can click New to create an additional timer if you have additional equipment.

Which timer to use

Use the table to help determine which timer to select based on your experiment. Click the name for each timer in the table below to get more information on how to set up the timing devices and measure the parameters for that sensor.

Experiment	One Photogate	Two Photogates	Picket Fence	Photogate with Pulley	Collision	Pendulum	Time of Flight
Cart position			✕	✕
Cart speed	✕	✕	✕	✕
Cart acceleration		✕	✕	✕
Cart collisions (velocity)					✕
Pendulum motion						✕
Rotation motion				✕
Projectile motion							✕
Free fall acceleration			✕

How data is recorded

Recording data with timers uses a different method than recording data with sensors. While sensors collect data continuously at a given sample rate, photogates record data at specific events in time, as shown in the following example.

Since data is recorded when a timing device detects an event, the first recorded data point usually doesn't occur at zero seconds on the clock. Additionally, data isn't aligned across rows, since events are recorded at different points in time.

This isn't a problem when displaying the data on a graph, but it can cause issues if you want to create calculations with the data. You need to enable timer mode in the Calculator to make calculations using timer data.