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Update April 1, 2009:
Tom S wrote a program that works with the newer ifit SD card machines. So cool – thanks Tom! You can download his program from Tom’s Microsoft Live site. I think this is still a work in progress. Any problems with the programs can be reported to Tom S at tes5 at aol dot com, or post them back here as a comment.
The Markster has also written a program for the newer SD card machines. Visit his website for more info:
http://mwganson.fre...low.com/workoutgensd
Other Notes:
* There are so many comments on this post that Firefox chokes and does not show them all, and you can’t post a new comment. So, use Internet Explorer until I can upgrade this blog (coming soon!). Sorry!
* There are some issues with which brand or sizes of SD cards will work. You can read through the comments (#93,#94, and #97, maybe more) on this blog to learn more about that.
Original Posting
Someone emailed me saying they have a newer Nordic Track treadmill that uses Ifit cards. He was wondering if there’s a way to create your own workouts, the way you can customize the older ifit treadmill workouts.
So, anybody out there know what’s on the newer Ifit workout cards? They are basically SD memory cards that you can plug into some of the newer Nordic Track treadmills. I was wondering if you read the card from your computer, what files are on the card? Update Jan 22, ’08: Two readers commented that mp3 audio files containing the beep codes that is on the ifit cards. I uploaded a few mp3 files here in case someone wants to test it out.
Speaking of treadmills, I did my Cheetah Fast Runervals DVD today, for the third time since I got the DVD at Christmas. It gets a bit easier each time…except for the very last set, which still leaves me feeling like I am going to puke. I think next time I will bump up my base pace to 3.5 mph, except for the last set 
The thing I like about Coach Troy’s workouts is that they are really hard; but the amount of rest he gives you is perfect so you can just barely recover before going hard again.
Here are some Nordic Track treadmills that use the IFit cards:
* Nordic Track C2155 Treadmill
* Nordic Track A2550 Treadmill
* Nordic Track C2500 Treadmill
* Nordic Track C2350 Treadmill
I just found this while at work. Can’t wait to go home and try it out. We just got a new treadmil and eliptical over the weekend. Had our first workouts last night!
We have the NordicTrack Elite zi Treadmill and the NordicTrack Audiostrider 990 Elliptical. I see in the programs that the Treadmil has Speed and Incline and the Eliptical program has Speed (RPM) and Resistance. But my Eliptical also has Incline. Do you know if you will be able to control the incline also? Maybe with the same codes as the treadmill?
I of course would be more than willing to help debug. Also is the source code available?
Tom
So far every time I change that 2nd byte in the 0x5d block to anything other than the default 0×00, the workout just keeps running at whatever the current incline and speed is set at. No more speed/incline changes happen for the rest of the workout and no more audio files get played for the rest of the workout. I’m not sure if the workout stops at the end or if it just keeps going. Even if it just keeps going it could just be that the iFit equipment is no longer responding to speed/incline/audio/end program commands and not necessarily proof that the 2nd byte is time-related.
Hello Mark,
I assumed it’s another time byte but I never checked it. I could not understand why it would be a time byte as setting the 3rd byte to FF is about 18 hours. I would set the 2nd byte to 01 and the 3rd and 4th to 00 and see what happens. If you machine just keeps running and running then it’s a time byte and you probably cannot use it.
Let me know what you find.
Tom
Tom or Kevin (or anybody else who might know)
Any idea what byte #2 of the 0x5d (adjust speed and incline) blocks is used for? Have you experimented with different values for it? If so, have you found any values other than the default (0×00) that will not break the workout? The reason I’m asking is I’d like to use this byte as a boolean variable that my program can interpret upon loading the layout, but that won’t affect the way the iFit compatible equipment runs the workout.
My program is coming along nicely. It’s going to have the ability to include wave files three ways: 1) from disk, 2) by recording from default audio input source (i.e. microphone or line-in jack), or 3) by using an integrated text-to-speech engine (you type, it talks). The hard part was getting it to take the files from disk (using Heather’s sample files for testing) and putting them into the workout binary at the proper place. Once that was done it was fairly easy to integrate the other 2 methods (record and text-to-speech) into the pipeline.
The program will allow up to 17 workouts per SD card. All workouts will have to be the same length because I have a neat idea I want to implement that will require this.
The interface will be 2 rows of slider controls, one slider for each interval (one row for speed and one for incline). There will also be 2 horizontally oriented controls for better fine tuned control. You’ll be able to set the focus on the interval you wish to modify just by holding the mouse over the appropriate slider, which serves 2 purposes: 1) it allows you to modify the speed or incline, and 2) it gives you a sort of visual graph of the current setting. At 60 minutes, the sliders are jammed in pretty close together, but it’s still very usable, I think, although it does spoil a neat little visual effect I threw in for eye candy.
Before releasing it for testing I need to do a few more things, not the least of which is make the installer. I need to add more feedback to the UI, including probably a few labels that give the current status of the currently focused interval (speed, incline, distance, calories burned — if I can figure out the formula, etc.) and I also need to track down a few more bugs and try to improve stability.
Does anybody know the formula for figuring out how many calories a person of a specific weight and gender will burn for x number of minutes at y speed and z incline? The treadmill gives a generic calories burned estimate, but with the computer a user should be able to enter his weight and gender and use that information to get a more personalized estimate.
Bill
Thanks for the tip on IE Tab for Firefox. I just installed it and it works like a champ.
New versions are available at:
http://cid-d7eb8ddf63a6200a.sk.....ublic?uc=3
I made some changes that I hope will make the Bike/Elliptical versions work with audio.
I also changed some things on the installation routine. If anyone has problems installing or running the program please let me know.
Tom
I got my 1GB generic microSD card (with an included full sized SD adapter) in today. It works like a champ with the treadmill. I had ordered it from dealextreme. Here is a direct link, but they’re currently on backorder.
http://www.dealextreme.com/det.....r.12563040 The price was $4.30 with free shipping and handling.
My workout generator program is coming along quite nicely now. I still have a few bugs to work out and more than a few features to add, but the good news is the workouts it’s generating are working on the treadmill.
I’m very impressed with the work of Tom S in putting together these tools, and all of the code-breakers who helped figure out the iFit rules. Great work!
I just downloaded the updated version for Elliptical Trainers, and tested two simple programs on my Nordic Track AudioStrider800 ET. It worked great, including the ability to put two workouts on the same layout.fit file, and select which one to use after plugging in the card. (FWIW, I used an HP 1GB SD card.)
Based on your warning in msg 191 (and a disturbing experience with Heather from the iFit demo telling me that “Fiber is Great”!) I did not attempt to use sound, so I can’t comment on that feature.
I will be glad to further test this version over the next few days, as well as any updated Elliptical Workout Generator versions that need testing.
Thanks again for sharing your time and talents.
quick update…I was just notified that the bike version seems to work without audio only. If anyone is trying to use it and having problems try generating the workout without audio. I’ll see if I can figure out why the audio is causing a problem.
I found some problems in both the Bike and Elliptical versions. Here’s the link again:
http://cid-d7eb8ddf63a6200a.sk.....px/.Public
The newest versions are available. I’m betting the Bike and Elliptical versions will still need some work so please give me feedback if you try them.
Thanks.
Carol, in post #60 I put a link to a place where people can download the file. If you want to put that link at the top of the page it would be great.
Tee Man, my email address is tes5 at aol dot com. I can spend some time working with you to see if we can get the bike/elliptical version to work. If you’re interested in helping please email me.
I was working on something else, and downloaded a file from box.net. They have free service for file downloads. See https://www.box.net/signup …maybe a good place to store the ifit program, and then I can link to it from the top of this article?
Hi Mark,
I’ll try to modify the program to allow the user to set the maximum allowable speed.
Thanks,
Tom
Hello Tee Man,
I am out of town right now but I’ll try to work with you to get the bike version to work next week if you like. I was pretty confident there would be some problems and you are the first to give me some feedback. I’ll post again sometime next week and we can work on getting it fixed.
Tom
Any Chance of getting this to work on the Bike. I used the sample download from ifit.com and it works so I know my SD card is good. When I used the elliptical version on my Nordictrack U300 it just beeps and go off.
Tom
I downloaded your latest treadmill workout generator program. It is proving very helpful in helping me track down some of the bugs in my own program, by comparing your generated files with mine. Good idea on the disclaimer message, too. I should incorporate something similar before distributing any test versions. You might want to include something about how folks should consult a physician before beginning any exercise program and how they should be sure to read their owner’s manual before operating any exercise equipment.
One thing I noticed that I hadn’t spotted before — you have 10 mph as the max speed. My Reebok goes up to 12 mph. I think there are some treadmills that will go up to 15 mph, although I’m not sure any of those are iFit compatible.
You could include a settings option for configuring the maximum speed the user’s treadmill can go. Maybe 3 radio buttons offering 10, 12, and 15 as options or a text field where the user can enter it manually. I’m not sure what might happen if a user enters too high a value (e.g. tries to make his 10 mph treadmill go 15 mph). Wouldn’t want to burn up anybody’s motor by trying to make it go faster than it was designed for. (Overclocking?
I got my Kodak 512MB cards in today. They do work with my Reebok treadmill.
Wow! This is awesome! Thanks for working on this guys!
Ran the program on Windows 7 beta
Loaded the files onto a 256MB Corsair SD card
Used the Nordictrack Commercial 1500 series treadmill
Everything worked great!
Tom,
Great work on the program. I cannot wait to try it out as I have been looking for this information for quite a while to program my own routine. Would you be opposed to publishing/sharing the source code?
Thank in advance!
Good news on the missing Kodak 512MB SD card. It has been found. I’ve no idea how it got where it was, but there you have it.
I have to correct myself when I stated previously on several occasions that it was a Kodak card. It’s actually a Lexar card. Lexar apparently makes all of Kodak’s cards for them, so the error is probably not significant (except I could have bought Lexar replacements probably cheaper than the Kodak replacements I ordered). The volume label for the card says “KODAK”, which is the reason I was thinking it was a Kodak brand card. I don’t know if the Kodak camera created the volume label or if we created it when we got the camera. It’s all a blur to me now.
In any case, now I’ll be able to do start generating a few test files and trying them out on the treadmill. The program is still quite buggy and nowhere near ready for public testing, but it is coming along.
Mario
I haven’t actually tried to use any of the workouts produced by any of Tom’s program versions yet. The output should be compatible, though.
I have the same treadmill as Markster – the Reebok S 9.80. I am going to try to run the program Tom S posted a link for on 3/16. Mark, Do you know if this version will work with our treadmill?
Hi Mark,
To the best of my knowledge the bike and ellipticals are identical files, but I have yet to have anybody actually try to run anything.
I can’t see any reason why you can’t put workouts for different machines on the same card as long as they are in the correct folder.
Take a look at post number 01 (not 1, it’s 01) above. Toine gives you some info on the values for resistance. His machine also allows you to alter the incline, but we called iFit and you cannot change the incline with the iFit program.
I would imagine there is a maximum RPM target setting, but I have no idea what that is. I think I arbitrarily set the max to 100 in my program, but I’m still waiting to hear if that’s a reasonable value.
Tom
Thanks for the info. I gather the bike/elliptical code is basically identical except for the name of the folder (/Ifit/Bike or /Ifit/Elliptical) that it goes into? Any harm in treating incline as resistance and just generating the Bike and Elliptical codes on the same card while generating the treadmill files? (aside from wasting some space on the card) What are the max settings for resistance and what are the increment levels?
I just received the 5 512MB MiniSD cards in the mail. They are Sandisk brand card with the full size SD adapter. Unfortunately, they don’t work with my Reebok S 9.80. Very disappointing. I’ll be able to put them to work in a Kodak camera, though, so it wasn’t a total loss. This time I ordered a 3-pack of the Kodak 512MB cards. I know they’ll work because that’s what I was using before. These were a little more expensive, though — $13 plus about $5 shipping.
Bill,
OK, good luck. Just to remind you, that version wants to put the files in a folder called iFit\Elliptic but for the bike they will need to be in iFit\Bike
You’re right, I had the wrong version. I just made a workout and will head to the store in a few days to try it out.
Bill,
I tried to reply to your post last night, not sure why it is not working.
I don’t think you have the correct version. There is a version on the website that is for elliptical machines and it has two graphs, Resistance and RPM. This version should work for Bikes, but you will need to put the files in a folder on your SD card called:
iFit\Bike
I sent the Elliptical version to a few people the other day to test but I have not heard back from them. There is a good chance this version will need some more work before it will function properly…I just don’t know. You can certainly try it, but you’ll be the first one to test it.
Tom
Hi Tom,
The install problem I had was because I was using XP SP 2. Once I upgraded to XP SP 3 the install worked fine. I have programmed a workout using the elliptical trainer (I thought that is what I downloaded but it says Treadmill in the title bar) and want to go use it while shopping for a bike.
Am I correct in assuming the incline associates to resistance for the bike?
Hi Mark,
I found that you need to put the metric value of speed in the following places:
Byte 3 of the 0×06 line
Byte 3 of both the 0×14 lines (there are two)
Byte 3 of the 0×15 line
Byte 6 of all the 0x5D lines
As far as the bike/elliptical, you’ll find the file format is very similar. Here’s a basic conversion of the lines:
Treadmill Bike
5A 4D
5B 4E
60 53
5D 50
The 0×50 lines have one fewer byte because you don’t need any metric values since the parameters are rpm’s and resistance. Byte 5 is rpm’s, byte 6 is resistance.
I sent a first pass of the elliptical program to two people the other day, but I have not gotten any response yet.
Let me know if you have any more questions.
Tom
Today I tried out the program and put 2 of my own workouts onto a Kingston 1gb Mini SD card with a full SD card adapter. They both worked just fine on my NordicTrack T7 Si. There was no problem installing it on my Windows Vista. Its a great program, thank you so much!
Tom S -
I owe you. I have a C2500 treadmill which I got just over a year ago and had quickly figured out that I wanted to be able to control the workouts. You have helped me fulfill that desire. I just finished my first workout using your program and I’m very happy to report that it worked perfectly! You deserve beaucoup kudos, sir.
For the record, I have XP on my PC and your program set up with no issues. It did tell me that some of my system files were newer than those in the install package, but I simply kept the newer ones I already had. I had ordered Kingston 2GB SD cards ($5 each) and a Kingston media reader ($15) from Amazon.com and they worked flawlessly.
Thank you very much…
Tom – I believe it said some of the system files were old and needed to be updated. I didn’t want to continue at that point on that computer. I am sure it expected operation for an outdated computer. I haven’t yet been able to try it at home.
Markster – I had the same problem with firefox, do you know about the IETab add-on to firefox. It lets you use IE tabs in firefox so you don’t have to bounce back and forth between two applications.
Carol
When using Firefox 3.0.7 I’m not able to see all of the posts on here. I switched over to IE 7 and everything shows up okay.
Tom
I was suspecting that some of the unknown header blocks could be related to the metric mode. I’m interested in what you figure out on that score and also on making workouts for the bikes and ellipticals.
I finally got my microSD 1GB card in from Hong Kong and, guess what? the card itself was missing. Only the full size SD adapter was in the package. Sigh. I contacted the vendor, who will make it good I’m sure, but I really don’t want to wait for them to process it.
I tried Wal*Mart, but no go. All they had were 2GB cards and bigger. In the meantime I placed an order through amazon.com for some 512MB miniSD cards w/ full size adapters. They were only $0.49 each (and $4.95 shipping) so I ordered 5 of them for a total of $7.40 shipped. Hopefully, they’ll work with the treadmill. I’ll post a message here when I get them in as to whether they work or not.
I’ve also tried partitioning cards (using gparted under puppy linux), but have not been able to find any size that the treadmill will accept. I do not believe it is a SD versus SDHC issue since if that was the case anything 2GB and under would work. From what I’ve read it seems these capacities will work: 256MB, 512MB, and 1GB. I tried 8GB, 4GB, 2GB, 512MB, and 64MB so far. Only the 512MB worked for me until I (or somebody) lost the card.
Bill, when you say it says that some of the system files are out of date is it asking if you want to replace files on the system that are newer than those in the installation or does it fail in some way?
If it is asking if you should replace newer files just say you want to keep the newest ones and continue.
Just tried to install on XP SP 2 and it said some of the system files are out of date, it’s an old lab machine I don’t want to futz with. I’ll try it at home.
Tom,
Oustanding work. I have now received two SD cards I ordered. Both Kodak, one 512Mb and one 1Gb. Both work in my Nordic Track C2000.
The programme installs and works on my Windows Vista Ultimate 32bit operating system.
I would like to thank you for all your hard work. This is brill.
Ricky.
OK, here’s the latest:
I figured out why the setup.exe program would not run on one of my computers. It was related to the fact that the installation CAB file had a long file name. It is unclear why this computer has this problem, but I shortened the CAB file name so nobody else should see this problem either.
I made some changes that I think will prevent the “attempting to overwrite newer files” warnings.
I believe there were a bunch of files in the installation that were unecessary so I removed them. The entire installation zip file is now under 1.5MB.
I put the latest version at this link:
http://cid-d7eb8ddf63a6200a.sk.....px/.Public
cut/paste the above (it’s all on one line) into your browser and hopefully you’ll be able to download the file.
I would appreciate it if anyone who tries this would let me know if everything works or if they have difficulty. I put a button at the bottom of the newest version that’s labled “Questions or Comments” when you click that you’ll get my email address. You can post your comments here or email me directly.
Assuming there are no other problems I’ll try to finish the Bike/Elliptical version now.
Tom
Finally got my hands on a 1gb lexar card, I would like for you to send me the program when u can Chilltownnj@comcast.net Also have u tried putting the file for download on a windows live skydrive account? or Adrive.com mediafire.com or rapidshare.com? in order of preference
I believe they are all free file sharing accounts, and u can change the file versions and reupload any changes and keep it at the same general link and just let us know that u made changes to the prog with a reply
Hi Tom,
I recently got a treadmill with an SD card slot and I’d love to try out your program.
Please send it to angelchi(at)gmail(dot)com if you can, thanks!
Just a quick update. I just found that the installation program is failing on one of my computers (XP). I’m not sure why this is happening. I will look into the problem. In the meantime, if anyone I’ve sent the program to is having a similar problem please let me know.
Thanks,
Tom
Thanks! I’ll hold off my purchase because it seems like this is really useful and worth waiting for. Let me know if I can help gather info or something.
Hi Bill,
After a quick look it appears the commands for the treadmill and the elliptical machines are the same. There are probably some differences in the file overall, but based on what I saw I think I’ll be able to take the elliptical version and make a bike version pretty easily. I’m going to work on the elliptical early next week and then I’ll see about the bike version. I will send you something as soon as it is available.
Thanks,
Tom
Hi Tom,
I am looking into getting an upright bike and would get one with iFit if this works, but it sounds like you guys use mostly treadmills. If you have something I can test, I’ll program a workout and take it down when I try out different bikes, then report back on success of different models (if it helps anyone).
Thanks! email is roc_the_cat at yahoo
Thanks, Tom.
Hi Chris,
The elliptical machines have a completely different set of commands. I’m working on converting the treadmill version and I believe I should have something next week. I will be sure to send you a copy when it is ready.
Thanks,
Tom
Tom S
I have a Nordic Track ASR 700 elliptical and would like to try to use your program to create a workour for it.
Please send it to:
chrisbeitz((at))tds((dot))net
Thanks!