Does your Chrony give you light errors indoors? Read on...

[editingfx]

My indoor range offers a Chrony for free use to their members (seems to be a rare thing, so I'm happy). I appear to be one of the few to ever use it, and I found out why - it constantly gives ERR9 (poor light condition). Tried all kinds of fixes; brighter bulbs, turned off the range lights, different distances, etc. Probably wasted 100 rounds trying. So I finally brought in a video light softbox (I'm a video guy by profession) & hung it over the Chrony - VOILA! Worked 100% perfectly. Every shot, good readings. Though I was happy to finally have it working, the softbox I had is too bulky to deal with on the range, but I have a suspicion that a couple of cheap scoop floodlights, hung on the target wire, with that diffusion material attached to the Chrony's light rods, will work just as well.

Hopefully this might help someone save some ammo.

 

[jmorris]

From what I’ve learned the sensors don’t like direct light. I have received errors early in the morning (or late in the day) that were corrected by tilting the chronograph in the proper direction so the sun shades could do their job. If you have clouds above you don’t even need the shades in place. If there are any fluorescent lights around you can forget it as they cycle on and off and generally mess things up. I had to do some night time chronograph work a few years ago and I used the setup below.

 

[tjj]

I have the CED M2 with the Infrared light source accessory. It's a built-in row of infrared LEDs that supply illumination for the sensors. Works anywhere. Specifically made for indoor or night time chrony work. The digital display is remoted to the shooting bench so you can't head shoot the thing unless you mean too.

The problem with most indoor ranges is that they have fluorescent lighting which introduces errors in readings on most chrony's.

 

[DBR]

One piece of matte finish Mylar from a graphic art supply house that extends about 6" beyond the screens on both ends helps. The sensors are looking for the shadow of the bullet and if the bullet is shiny and the light source is direct it causes specular reflections that confuse the sensor.

Ideally you want the light source to look like a bright, cloudy day.

Fluorescent lighting has a 60hz flicker that interferes with most chrono sensors.

 

[mongoose33]

I had this problem as well, and with a bit of advice from the tech service of the company, figured out how to use my chono indoors:

Sorry about the lousy resolution, it was taken w/ a cellphone camera. I attached a couple of clamplights w/ 100-watt bulbs to the legs of the tripod, shining upwards, and instead of the diffusers I put a piece of white poster/styro-board across the top to reflect the light.

Chronos will work poorly if at all if there is fluorescent light--the 60hz cycling of the light screws up the timing. Using these incandescents and the top piece solves that problem.

But this setup works for me. I tried just shining lights at the ceiling but it's not smooth and white enough to work. This does.

 

[editingfx]

Thanks mongoose! Your fix will be the solution to my experimentation.