Caldwell Ballistic Precision Chronograph 1006315-SSI

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Then the circuits are changed so that the electricity comes to each magnet through a wire screen. The rods are re-hung on the electromagnets.

After you have drilled the two holes for the IR transmitters, put the drill in the second hole you drilled and make sure it is completely perpendicular to the PVC pipe (there is pictures for most of these steps). Drill through the other side of the PVC pipe. You have just drilled out the hole for the second IR detector. Next, flip the pipe over and measure 4" across the pipe from the exact center of the second IR detectors hole. Make a mark and drill another hole, this one is for the first IR detector. Say we fired a paintball through the chronograph. Once the paintball has traveled through the chronograph and broke beam #2, we go and read the value of TMR1H:TMR1L (it's a 16-Bit value). For examples sake, we'll say the value we read was 15,930. Here is how we calculate the velocity of the paintball: Please note that your goods may be sent to you in instalments as availability of products can vary. For example certain products have specific delivery requirements which are explained below. Seeing as I am polling the IR Detectors and waiting to see when an object has broken beam #1, it takes 8 instruction cycles per loop when I am trying to detect if there is an object breaking the beam. Then once it has detected an object, it has one more instruction cycle to perform because it has to start Timer1. After it has done all of this, it has begun recording the time period that it takes the projectile to travel from beam #1 to beam #2. The same goes for beam #2. It takes 8 instruction cycles per "detection" loop and one more instruction to turn Timer1 off. Therefore the worst case scenario is:

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All in all, I am quite pleased with how the chronograph works. It wasn't very difficult to build and the code itself is pretty easy to follow. Eventually I plan to update the code and use INT0 and INT1 to detect when a projectile is being shot through the chronograph. This will increase the accuracy and allow for much more efficient code. I would like to make a smaller version of this chronograph, but it is pretty tough to make a lot smaller due to the 16x2 LCD Display. Perhaps I will look into using 7-Segment Displays as a means of relaying the data to the user.

Now that we got all of the requirements and setup out of the way, we can move on and finally get to the exciting stuff. The operation of this chronograph is rather simple, there are two IR transmitters and two IR Detectors, each transmitter/detector pair is placed exactly four inches apart. Caldwell Ballistic Precision Chronograph Premium Kit Contains everything you need to capture reliable velocity data in one convenient kit. Includes Chronograph, IR LED Light Kit, Tripod and Custom Carry Case that conveniently holds all items. The Caldwell Ballistic Precision Chronograph Premium Kit provides accurate velocity measurements across a wide range of shooting conditions. Higher accuracy was achieved by using a high speed 48 MHz processor and by designing a circuit with an advanced data interface that allows each unit to be computer calibrated at the factory after assembly. The end result is the ability to provide much better accuracy than other chronographs on the market (+/- .25%). Although technologically advanced, the unit is designed to be simple to operate, displaying velocity in Feet per second or Meters per second on the large built in LCD screen. Now that we have the chronograph up and working, we will find the worst case scenarios and error tolerances of this device. I will calculate the accuracy according to a 300fps velocity (I assume that the IR Transmitters/Detectors are placed exactly 4" apart, I won't account for manufacturing error).

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Now we'll take a look at what calculations are needed to get the actual velocity of the projectile. So assuming that there are no other sources of error (distance is exactly 4", beams are broken identically on each side, etc) we would have an accuracy of 99.865% at 300fps for this chronograph. This is very good, however, there are many other small sources of error that I have not accounted for. Therefore it is highly unlikely that the chronograph that I build or you build will be 99.865% accurate. Nonetheless, it works quite well and I am very pleased with it. We know that the distance between the IR "beams" is exactly 4 inches. So all we need now is to know how long it took the projectile to travel from beam #1 to beam #2. This is what Timer1 is used for. Every instruction cycle (83.3333 ns) the value of TMR1H:TMR1L will increment. The reason I don't drill through both IR transmitter holes and instead I measure 4" from the second IR detector hole is for accuracy. It is to ensure that both IR transmitters and both IR detectors are spaced exactly 4" apart from each other. This minimizes the error in the calculations and allows for greater accuracy.