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CED M2 Chronograph Review By Bryan Chatwell
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<blockquote data-quote="Engineering101" data-source="post: 963820" data-attributes="member: 63138"><p>I've had the CED M2 for several years. It generally has worked very well and I have great confidence in the accuracy of the numbers it provides. This comes from having shot thousands of rounds over it and getting the expected results. On those occasions where the results were unexpected it was me who screwed up not the chronograph.</p><p> </p><p>I always set the chrono sensors the same distance away as measured by a tape measure (4 yards) and I always align the sensors with a boresight laser so there are no errors from misalignment. If you don't do those two things you will have problems. I have always used a heavy tripod so don't know what would happen if it was more flimsy.</p><p> </p><p>Even though I did all that... there were a few problems along the way. One of the wires in the cable to the sensor broke from repeated handling even though it has a decent strain relief. I went down to Radio Shack and picked up a similar cable and soldered it in place of the broken one which fixed that issue. I'm an Electronic Engineer by trade and while I had the sensor opened up I gave it the once over. The pc board on which they mounted the few components in the unit is OK, not aerospace grade but OK so no real problems there. Workmanship appeared good. The connectors they used on the IR screens for 12V power and the main sensor inputs suck but can be dealt with. While this is disappointing it is not unexpected in consumer electronics as high quality connectors are expensive and could kill the parts budget all by themselves.</p><p> </p><p>A more serious problem, the unit won't read really fast small bullets (think 22-250) with the typical lower light levels here in usually cloudy Seattle. The IR screens ($100) fixed that problem but I rarely use them as I rarely am using that rifle at the range.</p><p> </p><p>Recently I had another unexpected problem. I went to the range with a still working friend on a beautiful sunny afternoon. Being retired, I always go in the mornings so have not had to deal with the sun. After about 3 hours of working great the chrono stopped working. The angle of the sun in the late afternoon was such that it was hitting the lenses down inside the sensor assembly. I have subsequently wrapped a couple pieces of 2 inch wide duct tape around the bottom of the sensors which should prevent that from happening again. I'll report back on that one.</p><p> </p><p>One other thing. Since this unit uses a microprocessor that is just sitting there waiting for you to press the on key, it will suck your battery down even though you thought the unit was turned off. It uses what is called a "soft off" feature so you need to take the battery out and stick it in the reserve compartment when not actually using the unit.</p><p> </p><p>If you are willing to baby this unit (understand and put up with it's limitations) and set it up properly it will give very consistent results which right there makes it one of the better chronos on the market. The Ohler and Pro Chrono Digital are two others that seem to be OK. The rest of them, not so much. The Magnetospeed is great except it will change point of impact and you have to move it from rifle to rifle which is a bit of a pain as I'm always shooting one rifle while the others are cooling. If my trick with the duct tape doesn't work, I may have to get one for those rare sunny afternoons.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Engineering101, post: 963820, member: 63138"] I've had the CED M2 for several years. It generally has worked very well and I have great confidence in the accuracy of the numbers it provides. This comes from having shot thousands of rounds over it and getting the expected results. On those occasions where the results were unexpected it was me who screwed up not the chronograph. I always set the chrono sensors the same distance away as measured by a tape measure (4 yards) and I always align the sensors with a boresight laser so there are no errors from misalignment. If you don't do those two things you will have problems. I have always used a heavy tripod so don't know what would happen if it was more flimsy. Even though I did all that... there were a few problems along the way. One of the wires in the cable to the sensor broke from repeated handling even though it has a decent strain relief. I went down to Radio Shack and picked up a similar cable and soldered it in place of the broken one which fixed that issue. I'm an Electronic Engineer by trade and while I had the sensor opened up I gave it the once over. The pc board on which they mounted the few components in the unit is OK, not aerospace grade but OK so no real problems there. Workmanship appeared good. The connectors they used on the IR screens for 12V power and the main sensor inputs suck but can be dealt with. While this is disappointing it is not unexpected in consumer electronics as high quality connectors are expensive and could kill the parts budget all by themselves. A more serious problem, the unit won't read really fast small bullets (think 22-250) with the typical lower light levels here in usually cloudy Seattle. The IR screens ($100) fixed that problem but I rarely use them as I rarely am using that rifle at the range. Recently I had another unexpected problem. I went to the range with a still working friend on a beautiful sunny afternoon. Being retired, I always go in the mornings so have not had to deal with the sun. After about 3 hours of working great the chrono stopped working. The angle of the sun in the late afternoon was such that it was hitting the lenses down inside the sensor assembly. I have subsequently wrapped a couple pieces of 2 inch wide duct tape around the bottom of the sensors which should prevent that from happening again. I'll report back on that one. One other thing. Since this unit uses a microprocessor that is just sitting there waiting for you to press the on key, it will suck your battery down even though you thought the unit was turned off. It uses what is called a "soft off" feature so you need to take the battery out and stick it in the reserve compartment when not actually using the unit. If you are willing to baby this unit (understand and put up with it's limitations) and set it up properly it will give very consistent results which right there makes it one of the better chronos on the market. The Ohler and Pro Chrono Digital are two others that seem to be OK. The rest of them, not so much. The Magnetospeed is great except it will change point of impact and you have to move it from rifle to rifle which is a bit of a pain as I'm always shooting one rifle while the others are cooling. If my trick with the duct tape doesn't work, I may have to get one for those rare sunny afternoons. [/QUOTE]
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