Wednesday, July 25, 2018

More Frustration

After yesterday's fiasco with the chronograph, I went today to our local Ace hardware to see what they had in the way of inexpensive lights I could use on the diffusers to get better light on the chronograph sensors.

I found some small LED lights that I thought might work.  They came in a 3-[pack for under $20, so I thought I'd give them a try.   I also moved the chrony out from the bench, ten feet in front of the muzzle, to get away from measuring ejecta and muzzle blast.

With lights installed on the diffusers.  You would think that would be sufficient.
Evidently, it still needs more or better light.  I'm still getting spurious readings, or error readings.  I got several Err 3 and Err 9, which the chrony manual tells me are related to poor light conditions.

The view fro the shooting bench.
I got a few reading that might be useful, but with the number of spurious readings and error codes, I can't put any faith in them.  I may have to buy a set of accessory lights that I see in at least one YouTube video.  They seem to be optimized for light in the near-infrared spectrum that the sensors see best.

In a lot of cases (and I learned this when I was writing for The Frugal Outdoorsman) experimenting is often one-step-forward-and-two-steps-back.  But, back in those days, we didn't announce our failures publicly.  Here lately, this project has been a cascade of failure, but I know that once I break the code, success is just around the corner.

But, the brass is in the tumbler and I know what steps I need to take next.  We'll keep plugging away at this until we get it right.
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6 comments:

  1. Judy2:55 PM

    Edison and the 10,000 ways not to get a light bulb. What's great about this being a hobby is you won't lose your job over the trial-n-error part of getting it to work.

    ReplyDelete
  2. George3:44 PM

    LED lights flicker. That may be what the issue is. Get a halogen work light and try it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Old NFO9:06 PM

    George beat me to it. They flicker at 60hz... sigh

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous12:37 AM

    some sort of non-flickering light - not florescent, not LED.

    Either an incandescent 60 W bulb over each sensor, or MAYBE a powerful old-style flashlight with incandescent bulb.

    everything else flickers.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Titan Mk6B7:42 AM

    Have you thought it may be the bullet itself? Try painting them silver or some other reflective color.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous6:41 PM

    Or, thinking out of the box here, you could get a high speed camera that shoots
    several hundred frames per second, and shoot against a checkerboard background.

    They aren't that expensive, and they show up on Ebay second hand.

    Check with Mr. Volokh for a recommendation?

    Casio has several models that shoot 500 frames per second - not the highest resolution, but workable.

    ReplyDelete

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