Electronics pros: help me build a light kit for my Chrono

[Trbo323]

So, odd issue here, I have a Caldwell ballistic Chrono at home

And it has issues with the lights in my paintball space. One or both of the sensors don't read when it's not happy about the lighting and it's pretty annoying because it's pretty much every other shot.

So, Caldwell sells an infrared light kit for just this situation



But, it's like $70. And I was thinking, there has to be a way to put some IR lights on the top bar without spending that kind of money.

Here's the problem I'm finding though, has to be 120v so I can just plug it in. There's lots of battery operated ones out there but I know I'll forget it and kill the batteries all the time. I also have my Chrono and some of the lighting wired into a surge protector so I would like everything to come on when I flip the surge protector

So, I'm hoping one of you guys has enough experience with building oddball things to know what I need to order because I'm looking around and feeling kind of lost

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[tyronejk]

If that light kit is just IR lights to drown out ambient lights (or make both front and back sensors match?) there should be a decent number of off-the-shelf options.

Infrared led strip on ebay
12v power supply on ebay

[Rolling Thunder 67]

https://www.outdoority.com/timing-equipment-and-accessories/41783-ballistic-precision-chronograph-light-kit.html

might be worth a look.

[Grendel]

Try old fashion incandescent light bulbs as a cheap fix. Florescent and LED bulbs flicker in most fixtures and that is an optical sensor chronograph and is measuring changes in light. You will want to defuse the light as well so there is a uniform background for the optical sensors to look at.

[tyronejk]

This is a good point. Cheap DC power supplies usually don't do good job filtering out the AC signal and cheap LEDs make it even worse. Incandescent bulbs are probably a cheaper and better performing solution.

[SignOfZeta]

Try old fashion incandescent light bulbs as a cheap fix. Florescent and LED bulbs flicker in most fixtures and that is an optical sensor chronograph and is measuring changes in light. You will want to defuse the light as well so there is a uniform background for the optical sensors to look at.

I agree. This sounds like another situation where dropping in hyper bright PWM LEDs F something up. Fixing this will likely lower your stress levels as well.

[Trbo323]

Ironically changing the ceiling bulbs will actually be a lot more work. It's a fairly large room, around 500 sq feet with 13ish foot tall ceilings, and a hot tub to work around.

I'd rather modify the Chrono to work in all situations even if I have to move my paintball space in the future.

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[Grendel]

Hell take a cardboard box cut a hole through it so you can shoot through it and see the display. leave the top open and lay a piece of light defuser material on top then suspend a 60 watt lightbulb or two a couple feet above it. 60 Watt should be bright enough to over power your regular lights and give you a "clean" light background. There is nothing to change on the chrono itself to fix this issue (other then pay the 70 bucks for their light sources) it just needs to look at an steady light background to make a measurement that is stable then when the paintball passes over the two openings it can sense the change and do the math to tell the speed. Your problem is inside your background light levels are constantly changing according to the chrono. You really can not even use these outside under trees because of the leaves and limbs moving around.