The Buckymeter has circuit-board-mounted power and record switches along with a collection of status LEDs. At power-up, the Buckymeter initializes, runs a brief system check, and begins monitoring controls until it is powered down. The record switch can be used to manually start and stop recording. Testing with live animals revealed that it was more convenient to start and stop recording remotely.

On the bucking dummy, a recessed Start switch initiates the recording of acceleration. The recorder runs for 300 s after it starts. Additional presses of the Start button resets the counter to its original 300 s. If nothing else happens, recording stops at the end of the 300 s timer period. If the eject signal is received (triggered by the Buckymeter release mechanism), the timer jumps to 10 s remaining and counts down to completion.

This easily configurable mechanism allows for some flexibility in starting the recording, releasing the bull, and then stopping the recording when the ride is over. An appropriate setup for use in futurity events (where a 6-s ride is the norm) would be a 20-s record and 1-s timeout.

Four LEDs on the Buckymeter circuit board show its operational status. A red LED illuminates when the RS-232 driver is active. A yellow LED blinks to show that data recording is in progress. Two additional LEDs flash to indicate the software’s status and debugging information.