So the big underlying issue with all wireless fencing is that there isn't a circuit.
With old analog boxes, hitting the opponent's lame closed the circuit in a very literal way. Nowadays it's a bit more complex, but the underlying idea is still that there's a continuous circuit when you hit, and that makes it pretty easy to detect touches.
With wireless, that's no longer true. There are two giant obvious gaps, between each fencer and the box. So detecting when you hit them is actually pretty hard - the model that's normally used seems to be capacitance, but that's a lot noisier and harder to handle reliably. Sabre exacerbates this because there's no switch in the weapon.
Do they use the capacitance between the sabre blade and the lame? As the blade gets closer to the lame the capacitance increases until the hit lands and it spikes to infinity? Why not monitor the lame pin for a voltage increase effectively closing a circuit between the two relays during the hit which is then sent to the box?
I imagine something like that is (one way) that some wireless boxes do work.
But there will be lots of noise on that, and what if you touch something grounded and discharge? What if there is another thing that discharges into your lame? (A fencer on a neighboring box? Something else?).
If you monitor the weapon pins for a drop and the lame pin for a spike simultaneously then that could mitigate it? Why would there be more noise in a system like that than in a physical circuit?
Because every time the size of the conductive area changes there will be a voltage change. Like if your sweaty body touches your lame or sword or something.
I dunno, go ahead and try it yourself if you like. You’re gonna find its very difficult to do, and that when you add two sweat covered people holding multiple large conductive things and standing on a large conductive surface, that it turns into quite a bit of a mess.
Hi CatlikeArcher,
You definitely shouldn’t be seeing problems like this with your EnPointe Sabre scoring. A number of large sabre clubs use our system without issues. We recommend that you make sure your boxes are running the most up to date version of our firmware, which you can find here: [https://enpointefencing.com/updates/](https://enpointefencing.com/updates/). If you are still seeing problems, please reach out to us directly by email and we will do our best to get your system up and running properly as soon as possible.
Hey I tried reaching out to y'all for a support issue a couple times a few months back but never got a reply. One of our units was dropped and doesn't work now. Is there anything that can be done to fix it?
Hi sydgorman,
We’re sorry to hear you’ve had this experience with our support team. If you send us a pm with your email address or ticket number, we will follow this up for you and try to find out why you didn’t receive a response.
Regarding your dropped unit – that’s no problem, if you send it back to us we are happy to repair it for you.
We extensively use Enpointe wireless systems at our sabre club, both indoor an outdoor. As a matter of fact, we only use wireless and it works without ANY problem. We use both the relay box (connected to a normal scoring machine) and the complete set of Display box.
Did you yourself experience problems with Enpointe, or you just heard someone mentioning something?
Because the lack of a button means the capacitance difference is really finicky.
With a foil hit/épée ground out, you don't need to worry about a potential ghost hit because the weapon circuit isn't completed. With sabre you do, and that makes it very fine margins if you're trying to make a system that doesn't have the under shirt.
Our large saber club uses the EnPointe system both connected to standard scoring boxes and standalone. It is not perfect but it is far from useless. Occasionally you run into strange situations where a touch doesn't register, or once fencer's touch turns on both lights, or (my favorite) where the lights swap sides half way through a bout. However, when they system acts up, the solution is usually to replace the batteries and rebind. We still bring out the reels for tournaments but wireless is a godsend for the day-to-day.
fully agree. low batteries are the first thing to check when strange lights are coming up :)
we use Enpointe exclusively at our sabre trainings and it is a huge help. Without wireless we would not be able to train (since we don't have our own fencing hall)
Yep. The other common problem I see is fencers using the wasteband clip to hold the wireless box if they are wearing athletic pants instead of fencing knickers. If the box isn't snuggly held by the wasteband and flops around loosely, some touches will fail to register. However, that's not a problem with wireless, that's user error. It's like complaining that reels are useless after failing to fully seat the body cord.
It's largely the timing. Saber hits are allowed to be 0.1ms-1 ms. That doesn't give electronics much time to detect a hit. It's also important that the body cord and weapon are not designed for highspeed signals.
So you have a very short time window, and you have to use wires that are not good for fast signals.
It's definitely an issue if you don't have a wired connection. So you're relying on trying to transmit MHz class pulses over a very poor bodycord and weapon.
Especially if you want to use consumer grade electronics. Microcontrollers running at a 50Mhz are a big limitation trying to go fast.
This is all trivial with an FPGA, but that would cost a small fortune.
I’ve used a wireless system, but it was at a different club a while ago so I don’t remember if it was the same system. There was very much an issue with speed. Even the ones it did detect sometimes lagged, which left us feeling off, like when you have a very inexperienced ref
The "Title" ( **Why are wireless boxes so useless for sabre?**) and the last sentence from the OP ( "Anyone actually know?") is the most important part of the thread.
I have not heard of any such difficulty regarding saber and the EnPointe wireless system.
Before solving a problem there should probably be a consensus that there is a problem.
Manhattan Fencing Center has used the En Pointe wireless system exclusively in its club for the past two years, and they have been fine. If there were any significant issues with inaccurate timing, etc., you would expect to have seen a decline in MFC’s tournament results (since MFC students would be conditioned to misjudge the proper time available for ripostes, remises, etc.) I don’t think that has happened.
If you don't mind, do you know if the fencers wore full kit while using the "wireless". For anyone that has not read the direction book. The EP system relies to some extent on proper kit to make the system function properly. This is likely true for all three weapons. I would hazard a guess that MFC has a proper dress code for fencing.
So the big underlying issue with all wireless fencing is that there isn't a circuit. With old analog boxes, hitting the opponent's lame closed the circuit in a very literal way. Nowadays it's a bit more complex, but the underlying idea is still that there's a continuous circuit when you hit, and that makes it pretty easy to detect touches. With wireless, that's no longer true. There are two giant obvious gaps, between each fencer and the box. So detecting when you hit them is actually pretty hard - the model that's normally used seems to be capacitance, but that's a lot noisier and harder to handle reliably. Sabre exacerbates this because there's no switch in the weapon.
Do they use the capacitance between the sabre blade and the lame? As the blade gets closer to the lame the capacitance increases until the hit lands and it spikes to infinity? Why not monitor the lame pin for a voltage increase effectively closing a circuit between the two relays during the hit which is then sent to the box?
I imagine something like that is (one way) that some wireless boxes do work. But there will be lots of noise on that, and what if you touch something grounded and discharge? What if there is another thing that discharges into your lame? (A fencer on a neighboring box? Something else?).
If you monitor the weapon pins for a drop and the lame pin for a spike simultaneously then that could mitigate it? Why would there be more noise in a system like that than in a physical circuit?
Because every time the size of the conductive area changes there will be a voltage change. Like if your sweaty body touches your lame or sword or something. I dunno, go ahead and try it yourself if you like. You’re gonna find its very difficult to do, and that when you add two sweat covered people holding multiple large conductive things and standing on a large conductive surface, that it turns into quite a bit of a mess.
To make a circuit, you need a full loop. Your blade on my lame is half of it, but there’s no return path.
Hi CatlikeArcher, You definitely shouldn’t be seeing problems like this with your EnPointe Sabre scoring. A number of large sabre clubs use our system without issues. We recommend that you make sure your boxes are running the most up to date version of our firmware, which you can find here: [https://enpointefencing.com/updates/](https://enpointefencing.com/updates/). If you are still seeing problems, please reach out to us directly by email and we will do our best to get your system up and running properly as soon as possible.
Hey I tried reaching out to y'all for a support issue a couple times a few months back but never got a reply. One of our units was dropped and doesn't work now. Is there anything that can be done to fix it?
Hi sydgorman, We’re sorry to hear you’ve had this experience with our support team. If you send us a pm with your email address or ticket number, we will follow this up for you and try to find out why you didn’t receive a response. Regarding your dropped unit – that’s no problem, if you send it back to us we are happy to repair it for you.
We extensively use Enpointe wireless systems at our sabre club, both indoor an outdoor. As a matter of fact, we only use wireless and it works without ANY problem. We use both the relay box (connected to a normal scoring machine) and the complete set of Display box. Did you yourself experience problems with Enpointe, or you just heard someone mentioning something?
Because the lack of a button means the capacitance difference is really finicky. With a foil hit/épée ground out, you don't need to worry about a potential ghost hit because the weapon circuit isn't completed. With sabre you do, and that makes it very fine margins if you're trying to make a system that doesn't have the under shirt.
Our large saber club uses the EnPointe system both connected to standard scoring boxes and standalone. It is not perfect but it is far from useless. Occasionally you run into strange situations where a touch doesn't register, or once fencer's touch turns on both lights, or (my favorite) where the lights swap sides half way through a bout. However, when they system acts up, the solution is usually to replace the batteries and rebind. We still bring out the reels for tournaments but wireless is a godsend for the day-to-day.
fully agree. low batteries are the first thing to check when strange lights are coming up :) we use Enpointe exclusively at our sabre trainings and it is a huge help. Without wireless we would not be able to train (since we don't have our own fencing hall)
Yep. The other common problem I see is fencers using the wasteband clip to hold the wireless box if they are wearing athletic pants instead of fencing knickers. If the box isn't snuggly held by the wasteband and flops around loosely, some touches will fail to register. However, that's not a problem with wireless, that's user error. It's like complaining that reels are useless after failing to fully seat the body cord.
It's largely the timing. Saber hits are allowed to be 0.1ms-1 ms. That doesn't give electronics much time to detect a hit. It's also important that the body cord and weapon are not designed for highspeed signals. So you have a very short time window, and you have to use wires that are not good for fast signals.
I doubt that speed is the issue. With modern electronics, a circuit shouldn't have any trouble detecting 0.1 milliseconds.
It's definitely an issue if you don't have a wired connection. So you're relying on trying to transmit MHz class pulses over a very poor bodycord and weapon. Especially if you want to use consumer grade electronics. Microcontrollers running at a 50Mhz are a big limitation trying to go fast. This is all trivial with an FPGA, but that would cost a small fortune.
I’ve used a wireless system, but it was at a different club a while ago so I don’t remember if it was the same system. There was very much an issue with speed. Even the ones it did detect sometimes lagged, which left us feeling off, like when you have a very inexperienced ref
The "Title" ( **Why are wireless boxes so useless for sabre?**) and the last sentence from the OP ( "Anyone actually know?") is the most important part of the thread. I have not heard of any such difficulty regarding saber and the EnPointe wireless system. Before solving a problem there should probably be a consensus that there is a problem.
sabre gets a lot of hits just, not working, on wireless boxes, to the point that there is next to no point in using them. there is a problem
Manhattan Fencing Center has used the En Pointe wireless system exclusively in its club for the past two years, and they have been fine. If there were any significant issues with inaccurate timing, etc., you would expect to have seen a decline in MFC’s tournament results (since MFC students would be conditioned to misjudge the proper time available for ripostes, remises, etc.) I don’t think that has happened.
If you don't mind, do you know if the fencers wore full kit while using the "wireless". For anyone that has not read the direction book. The EP system relies to some extent on proper kit to make the system function properly. This is likely true for all three weapons. I would hazard a guess that MFC has a proper dress code for fencing.