The deal with Madbull 2.1 Chrono's ?

[Snakeeyes75]

Hi all, I bought a Madbull Chrono off another forum member a couple of week ago, I used it to chrono both mine and a couple of friends guns. At the time it worked fine, just gone to use it today and it's reading about 50fps exactly lower than the previous reading. Now, I know this thing has had some horrible reviews, even saying the same issue. I have a couple questions from this, how long do the batteries take to charge fully using the USB? (I've plugged it onto my iPhone charger) does the light go out??. Has there been any solutions to the problem, seems weird that one moment it was working and now it's not??

Cheers

 

[Spatch]

Pretty standard for madbull cronos, they are fairly pants, be careful charging things off chargers that aren't intended, you'll easily screw the batteries, I phone charger is something like 5mw from memory, iPad is 10mw the charge system may not be able to take the power

 

[Snakeeyes75]

Pretty standard for madbull cronos, they are fairly pants, be careful charging things off chargers that aren't intended, you'll easily screw the batteries, I phone charger is something like 5mw from memory, iPad is 10mw the charge system may not be able to take the power

Click to shrink...

So how are they meant to be charged? Is it literally via the USB on my computer?

 

[Spatch]

I think so, if you haven't got the original instructions, try contacting Madbull via their website or on Facebook, they have a page on there to get the charging rates

 

[Samurai]

If you unscrew the side, you can remove the batteries and charge them in a normal charger. They are AA or AAA I can't remember.

 

[Ian_Gere]

I bought one from a member on here and sent it back immediately! The figures I was getting from it were way too low, but iirc inconsistent too. Can't remember off the top of my head whom it was either lol. But whomever it was they were totally fine about it. I've also seen someone try to use one for a new site's soft opening - free invite to get feedback (1st feedback = don't use that chrono again lol). This ties in with what others have said, so I wouldn't touch 'em again.

You should not have any problems using a phone charger plugged into it - the only time you would have a problem is if the impedances were wildly different. Worth checking that the batteries in it are actually rechargeables though and not alkaline ones.

My question is why did you buy it when you had already read comments saying they are shit? I didn't know when I bought one...

I've had no problems with my XCoretech X3200 MK II which i bought cheaply enough, new from fleabay, that i'm not 100% convinced it's not a fake - about £45 posted. But as i say, no problems. It does have a tendency to say "TOUT" instead of giving a reading if i place the muzzle too close, which means that finding the sweet spot, the closest distance at which that gun will give a reading, probably does introduce a degree of inconsistency between guns but, so far at least, whatever I've measured has not proved wildly different on a posh site chrono. I trust it for the main purpose i intended it for, which is to make sure that whatever upgrades and/or modifications I have added/made to a gun have not pushed it over whichever limits I'm operating under.

 

[Snakeeyes75]

So here's a follow up to my original problem. After speaking to another forum member I realized that the 2 AAA batteries that were fitted were infact non rechargeable 1.5v standard AAA's. (No disrespect to the other AFUK I bought it from, I should have checked first). What I will say is that with the correct 1.2v rechargeable batteries and a good charge the readings are much better, you still need to fire off about 10-15 shots and take out the obvious low/high readings. The other thing I noticed is that you need to hold the gun with the muzzle about 5mm from the entrance to the testing hole. I'd be interested if anyone else who's had issues with the Chrono has checked what batteries are inside!