"Free" Chrono Light Kit

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Dudedog

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I just got finished setting up my new CED USB device to connect the chrono to my laptop, but rats it's dark outside.
I really did not want to wait until tomorrow to see if it worked so I said "bleep: to bad I don't have a light kit.
Then I got to thinking. (Generally avoid this whenever possible)
I have 5 or 6 free Harbor Freight Blue LED flashlights about. (Coupons in the American Rifleman or in the mail sometimes) for a free light, tarp etc.
The ones I used are the blue dual function ones. They have a spotlight mode (3 LEDS) and a flood light mode (24 leds) They have a hook and a magnet on the back.
Hmm now to attach the lights, something easy to attach them to the sun shades. They have a magnet on the back. Hmm need two more good magnets.
Ahhh have dead hard drives, one of which used to have my reloading spreadsheets on it. :cuss: :banghead: (had backup but it was not current)

The Harddisks are held togather with a bunch of tiny Torx screws. (2 or 3 sizes) I picked up screwdriver kit from Harbor Freight with a bunch of bits, including you guessed it tiny Torx bits in 5 sizes, just for this purpose.

If you have a dead drive and haven't done this there are a couple reasons.
1. The magnets, very strong small magnets.
2. The disk platters, which are highly polished metal and make execellent emergency signal mirrors. (complete with sighting hole in the middle)

Remove all the screws from the hard drive cover. Some are covered up with the label, keep looking till the cover pops off.
Once the cover is off you will see the platters magnets, and an arm that has the read write heads on it. The top magnet usually just pops out. You will need to remove the arm to get the bottom one, but remove the platters first. There is a round piece on top with more Tiny Torx holding them in. There may or may not be spacers between them you need to remove. Sometimes the arm is press fit and sometime it is held on by a screw in the bottom of the drive. If there is a screw in the bottom you need to remove the circuit board on the bottom of the drive. (more tiny Torx) remove the screw and the arm will come out. The bottom magnet is usually held in place with a screw.
The magnets are attached to metal pieces and can usually not be removed without breaking them. You can cut off excess metal but coat the magnet with grease first or you will have metal dust you will never get off it.

This took me longer to type than it did to do, but I have gutted quite a few drives.

Anyway, put the sun shades on the chrono. Place the flashlight magnet facing up underneath the shade. Place your dead hard drive magnet on top of the sun shade and presto light is attached. (hard drive magnets are quite strong and easily hold the light in place)
 

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I actually tried that, with the same HF lights even, and couldn't get reliable readings.

Got it to work fine in a dark garage with something the kids had (airsoft maybe), but out in the wild I got erratic #s. Tried lights on top of the diffusers, taped below, just didn't work.

Really was hoping it was the $7 solution, and that I wouldn't have to buy the infrared kit.

Anyway, nice to see you got it up and working :)
 
Read my pellet rifle at 1122, 1119, 1126 fps fine (PBA pellet) 890s (lead pellets) (it was dark outside though) .177pellet, lead is lead colored - dark gray PBA is shiny copper colored
I tried it with my Competition Electronics Pro Chrono Digital.
I have always had good results with my Pro Chrono Pal, very few err reading or otherwise funny readings so maybe CE chronos are less picky.

I wonder how much difference the Chrono itself makes, some are maybe more picky some less picky?
The real test will be under fluorescent lights. (I can test the pellet rifle tomorrow after work in the garage)
I can also throw in stray side lighting in as well to see if that makes a difference.
I Will keep everyone posted. I may have posted to soon, did not really run a in depth test was just excited it seemed to work.(for 6 shots)
This is version 1.0 and it is still in Beta.
I am doing like software companies and releasing the Beta version so everybody can tell me whats wrong with it and if it dosen't work correctly.

I anticipate version 1.1 maybe even 2.0 will be ready tomorrow.
I am approaching this as a parts on hand type project, but it may take a bit more bits and pieces.


Duvel,if you don't mind me asking what chrono did you try it with?

Hmmm infrared LEDs, wonder how many old remotes I have laying around I could gut for parts...:evil: :D
 
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It's a current production CE ProChrono.

LEDs are DC (is there an AC version? Or by nature it's a DC device?), so there's shouldn't be any frequency to the light, at least not introduced by the power source. But, I've got undercab LEDs above my reloading area, and when I try to take a picture in that area I get a 'slow roll' on the camera screen, and it shows in the picture - just the garage flourescents on and the problem goes away.

Maybe it's a cheap power source supplying the undercabs, but I wondered if the same thing was happening with the HF 'palm beacons', and it was effecting the chrono. Guess I could take a picture with the HF light as the source and see.

I've read of others getting the same setup to work, but after two hours travel to the next chrono session was pretty, need a PC word that adequately conveys my bitter disappointment, miffed that my implementation didn't work. 'Range day' was a bust.

I will say that CE's infrared light kit (powered by $30 worth of batteries from Amazon) after about 150 strings (PNW, shaded, area, winter, sun, low, horizon) is near flawless.

Next up is a rechargeable 9V 'lantern' battery for the chrono itself :)
 
You might increase your chances by using the old trick of coloring your bullets with a marking pen. Also maybe taping a "diffuser" over the LED's which can be as simple as some scotch tape.
 
Had to use mine one night and rolled up a sheet of white cardboard, set the chronograph on the seam and used a 90 degrees flashlight for illumination.

chronylight.jpg
 
I tried diffusing with what I had in the field, a sandwich bag :)

Over the lights, even over the sensors themselves. Just didn't work.

Curious to see what Dudedog's results are.
 
Bummer it didn't work for you. Duvel :banghead:
(By the way thanks again for the Quickload data a while back)

The trick is the magic magnets from a dead hard drive that used to have my reloading data on it. :uhoh: A needed sacrifice to make the thing work.
I would be happy to send you my magnets but I have a feeling they MUST come from a hard disk that had Your data on it. :evil: :)

I had the LED flashlights shooting straight down at the sensors.
Don't know if/when I will be able to test something bigger that the pellet rifle in the dark. I would have to get back in the mountains outside of town and camp some place.


I tested in my garage under 4' tube fluorescents (fairly brightly lit 6 tubes 22' X 26') did not work at all under the lights by itself (expected as much) Seemed to be fine with my Harbor Freight flashlights. Failed to read one pellet (lead pellet dark color) around 880 fps for these 7.9gr pellets. The 5.1gr PBA pellets (shiny) read all 3 at around 1090fps.

I would think the lead pellets (.177 cal) would be a sort of tough read being small and dark, the PBAs easier.

So this may or may not work for everybody. If you get the flashlights from Harbor Freight for free the only cost is for decent batteries for them (+ whatever else you spend at Harbor Freight on other stuff)

Side note from test last night - One 3/8" piece of OSB will NOT stop the PBA pellets @ around 1100fps at 10'. They ended up in the plastic milk jug of water behind the board. You can sure hear the difference between them and the lead pellets, Supersonic crack from the suppressed pellet rifle.
.
 
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Fluorescent lights don't work with chronographs. Chronographs are a very fast stop watch that start and stop with the shadow of a bullet passing over two "eyes" (for the most part but there are some other styles).

Fluorescent lights cycle on an off faster than your eye can see (60 Hz Is pretty common) but ruin chrono results.
 
Yes -- 60 cycle flicker in the lights. I just wanted to verify that the LED flashlights solved the problem so I tested without them first and got the expected result, not working.
 
I may have missed this in the reading ... but has anyone tried the strip type LED lights that you can link together and power with DC batteries ... seems the battery would take care of the flicker problem ...
 
I have an LED headlight with 3 different levels of light output I use at work.
I do HVAC and when I have it at full output and I'm looking at a turning blower pulley everything looks normal. As I lower the intensity of the light the spinning blower pulley looks like I'm hitting it with a timing light.

For my Chrony Gamma Master I bought the Chrony Led Lamp
 
I do HVAC and when I have it at full output and I'm looking at a turning blower pulley everything looks normal. As I lower the intensity of the light the spinning blower pulley looks like I'm hitting it with a timing light.

Bit of an aha... My under cab light kit came with a remote, different brightness levels, strobe (?), etc. The circuitry that creates those 'modes' is possibly what's causing the frequency when viewed through a camera screen / picture.

Of course that has nothing to do with Dudedog's setup - but, strip LEDs with battery power... No circuits to interfere?

I've got the batteries already (for my infrared light kit) and LEDs are sold by the foot off a roll... Think I'll order some.

A reliable, cost-effective, battery powered solution this may be.

I do love Amazon Prime :)
 
Ah-ha moment--

Or--why didn't I think of that!:what:

Great idea, I think I'll try that. I have some ceramic magnets used at the axle factory as magnetic filters glued inside the housing to grab steel fragments wearing off the gears/bearings. They're so powerful you can't just pick one off of a flat piece of steel, you have to slide it to an edge to lift it off.

Going shopping in town today, will stop by HF, pick up a couple of those LED's.

I'll try this on my new millennium chronograph, I had trouble getting it to read because of the north facing range and the covered firing points creating a long shadow. I contemplated getting the IR lighting system, but it was more than the chrono cost! (With the battery pack). While the ranges all have AC powder available, I don't always shoot at the home range.

If this works, I'll take pics and write up a report on a separate thread.

Spring has sprung, I may get out next week to test those sig v-crown HP's! Along with the light set-up. I could test on the indoor range to see about the dark performance, yea or nay.
 
The nice thing about the HF light and the magnets is they can be put on or taken off the sunshades in about 30 seconds.
 
Shazzam, it works! I got the lights yesterday @ the local HF.JUST THE LIGHTS, didn't fall for anything else.

Today I got busy to install them. Just so happens the stiffener rails on the under side of the diffusers are a press fit for the O.D. of the lights. They darn near fit tight enough to stay put. For some reason though, the heavy duty magnets I have don't transfer through the 1/8 thick plastic.:mad: Might be the polarity of those ceramic magnets is N/S through the flat plane, not like a bar magnet. I had to run a wrap of electrical tape around the lights.

But the test came this evening,--oops I mean last evening. I used my son's one pump .177 pellet pistol with some newsprint to soak up the pellets. If it can read a tiny .177 pellet, it will certainly read a handgun inside the indoor range. Oh it missed about half of them, error-1 or error-2 means one screen was tripped but not both. Room was dark with just enough light to see the target and the sights.

On a side note. I might need to oil that pistol, readings were in the 260-280 fps range! Just seems real slow. I bought it for Matt when he was 8, he'll be 33 in a couple of months. What sort of oil do air guns need?
 
Air gun oil :D


Edit: I'm going to order the LED 'strip' lights this weekend. Tape them to the underside of the diffusers, maybe it'll work :)
 
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It's a current production CE ProChrono.

LEDs are DC (is there an AC version? Or by nature it's a DC device?), so there's shouldn't be any frequency to the light, at least not introduced by the power source. But, I've got undercab LEDs above my reloading area, and when I try to take a picture in that area I get a 'slow roll' on the camera screen, and it shows in the picture - just the garage flourescents on and the problem goes away.

Maybe it's a cheap power source supplying the undercabs, but I wondered if the same thing was happening with the HF 'palm beacons', and it was effecting the chrono. Guess I could take a picture with the HF light as the source and see.

I've read of others getting the same setup to work, but after two hours travel to the next chrono session was pretty, need a PC word that adequately conveys my bitter disappointment, miffed that my implementation didn't work. 'Range day' was a bust.

I will say that CE's infrared light kit (powered by $30 worth of batteries from Amazon) after about 150 strings (PNW, shaded, area, winter, sun, low, horizon) is near flawless.

Next up is a rechargeable 9V 'lantern' battery for the chrono itself :)
LED's are multiplexed, usually at 100Khz or so to extend battery life. They also use Pulse Width Modulation to change the intensity.

Think florescent light only faster.
 
Something you may want to consider while experimenting with LED lighting. LEDs that emit light in the visible light range are likely your best bet. Those with a wavelength between Violet (400 nano meters) and Red (750 nano meters). Remember the LEDs serve as the emitters and there is a detector which detects the projectile passing over based in a shadow in the projected or emitted light. The detectors sensitivity looks like a curve with a peak and the peak is the light wavelength the detector is most sensitive to, or the wavelength of maximum sensitivity. Detectors are generally photo sensitive transistors of photo sensitive diodes for applications like this.

For those trying to roll their own and having problems just a few things to consider in addition to what wbrco mentions.

Ron
 
Shazzam, it works! I got the lights yesterday @ the local HF.JUST THE LIGHTS, didn't fall for anything else.

Cool glad it worked for you snuffy. Not a lot of money for the lights and they are kind of neat lights for the price.
(I was getting concerned I might have sent people down a dead end road if it only worked for me)

You must have far more will power than I do escaping from HF with only the things you went in there to purchase.:)

I agree, my pellet rifle was pushing lead pellets around 1000 and the shiny non-lead pellets at about 1100. I figure a 177 pellet is not an easy read.

Another option to attach the lights would be velcro.
I just used Hard disk magnets because that is what I had on hand when the urge to try the lights struck.

And yes, special air gun oil, other oils can destroy the seals. (don't know this for a fact but seem to see it mentioned often)
 
The LED lights are typically controlled in brightness by using pulse width modulation (PWM). Essentially the are working similar to fluorescent lamps with the flickering on and off, thus the strobe-o-tach effect when looking at something spinning.

You will not be able to use any variable brightness LED light with a chrony unless it is running at the brightest setting.
 
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