daboone
Member
I'm retired. I love gadgets and gizmos.
My most recent purchase was the SA Development's Press Monitor III. I knew before I bought this electronic gizmo that it was a tool that would tell me a lot about the process, statistic, and add a layer of awareness to the progressive reloading.
So what does it do? This electronic box reminds me what action is next and has LED messages, alerts and beeps. These alerts warn me when any operation is out of sequence. It catches mistakes such as short stroking, forgetting to rotate the shell plate, not priming or any other out of sequence error. These issues can be avoided by just paying attention of course but serve as a nice reminders when interrupted to answer the phone, the door, bathroom call of duty, etc. Can safety oversight be faulted?
The other aspect that initially caught my attention was the statistics. The statistics includes Round Counter, Press Time for each session, Rounds Per Hour (Current and Total), Remaining Rounds before a session is completed/time required to complete those rounds you set prior to the session, and the powder measure and primer tube status for refilling. There are three long term statistics maintained in the memory of this device: Total Rounds, Total Press Time, and Total Rounds Per Hour. All three of these statistics are saved over ALL reloading sessions or can be reset, your choice.
That's the stuff I like about having this electronic oversight gadget.
Here are the CONS (?):
1- I've never soldered a wire or dabbled in color coded wiring and switches. It may be my age, but putting the right wire on the correct part of the switch then mounting the switches on the press was daunting for me. It took me about 3-4 hours to understand mentally how to go about doing this and another 2 hours to complete the process. Its not that the directions weren't clear or precise I was just intimidated by a process I've never done. Allen, the inventor, was very prompt and helpful in getting me past my self inflicted issues.
2- After getting my Press Monitor III setup and functioning on the 550B it was able to walk me through it's process and tell you what to do next. This however slowed me down tremendously. I was behaving like a complete reloading newbie. I was waiting for the monitor to tell me what to do next instead of just completing the process in a normal cadence. Once I stopped waiting to be told what to do and just did it, it became the oversight tool I knew it to be.
3- So these "cons" were really my issues and not the product's.
I'm very happy with all it features, bells and whistles. When my grandsons come over they know exactly when to stop reloading because a buzzer sounds, a light flashes and the error message appears. I love hearing them read the prompts as they reload the ammo they will be shooting.
My most recent purchase was the SA Development's Press Monitor III. I knew before I bought this electronic gizmo that it was a tool that would tell me a lot about the process, statistic, and add a layer of awareness to the progressive reloading.
So what does it do? This electronic box reminds me what action is next and has LED messages, alerts and beeps. These alerts warn me when any operation is out of sequence. It catches mistakes such as short stroking, forgetting to rotate the shell plate, not priming or any other out of sequence error. These issues can be avoided by just paying attention of course but serve as a nice reminders when interrupted to answer the phone, the door, bathroom call of duty, etc. Can safety oversight be faulted?
The other aspect that initially caught my attention was the statistics. The statistics includes Round Counter, Press Time for each session, Rounds Per Hour (Current and Total), Remaining Rounds before a session is completed/time required to complete those rounds you set prior to the session, and the powder measure and primer tube status for refilling. There are three long term statistics maintained in the memory of this device: Total Rounds, Total Press Time, and Total Rounds Per Hour. All three of these statistics are saved over ALL reloading sessions or can be reset, your choice.
That's the stuff I like about having this electronic oversight gadget.
Here are the CONS (?):
1- I've never soldered a wire or dabbled in color coded wiring and switches. It may be my age, but putting the right wire on the correct part of the switch then mounting the switches on the press was daunting for me. It took me about 3-4 hours to understand mentally how to go about doing this and another 2 hours to complete the process. Its not that the directions weren't clear or precise I was just intimidated by a process I've never done. Allen, the inventor, was very prompt and helpful in getting me past my self inflicted issues.
2- After getting my Press Monitor III setup and functioning on the 550B it was able to walk me through it's process and tell you what to do next. This however slowed me down tremendously. I was behaving like a complete reloading newbie. I was waiting for the monitor to tell me what to do next instead of just completing the process in a normal cadence. Once I stopped waiting to be told what to do and just did it, it became the oversight tool I knew it to be.
3- So these "cons" were really my issues and not the product's.
I'm very happy with all it features, bells and whistles. When my grandsons come over they know exactly when to stop reloading because a buzzer sounds, a light flashes and the error message appears. I love hearing them read the prompts as they reload the ammo they will be shooting.