LabRadar Screen Fault Question?

[muleman69]

My Lab is going black during shot and not recording? I have it about 6" to right of barrel and a couple inch's behind muzzle? The remote trigger is rap tied on the chamber?

 

[MikeT124]

Very little helpful information here. Did this setup ever work before? Check the connection for the remote trigger, all nice and tight. Honestly don't remember what my screen does during a shot, never looking at the screen at that time. Need more information to try to isolate the issue.

Mike

 

[muleman69]

Very little helpful information here. Did this setup ever work before? Check the connection for the remote trigger, all nice and tight. Honestly don't remember what my screen does during a shot, never looking at the screen at that time. Need more information to try to isolate the issue.

Mike

Not sure what I can tell you other than I put new batt's in. Screen will black out for a second ,just blink on and off? Then error ,no shot auqusistion

 

[Fuj]

I won't say the batteries are the problem, But ditch them
and get an external power source and cable. Also check
your settings for "Screen Saver" and "Arm time". Max
those out.. Now I won't say the external trigger is the problem
but take it off and set the Radar for the internal trigger sensor.
Make sure it is not set for "Doppler". And do look at the Radar
before pulling the trigger to make sure the orange light is lit.
And check to make sure the internal acoustic level is not set
low.

 

[Ccrider]

Either a power problem or a software problem. If changing the batteries out don’t fix it, call the folks at LabRadar and they will walk you through the fix of it is software related.

 

[Fuj]

One thing I never ran into and My buddy just mentioned on
his. He had similar problems and was told to replace the
sim card. Claims he had no more problems after the swap.
I personally never store data on my Lab. I record in my range
book for the day, then delete.

 

[dttheliman]

I won't say the batteries are the problem, But ditch them
and get an external power source and cable. Also check
your settings for "Screen Saver" and "Arm time". Max
those out.. Now I won't say the external trigger is the problem
but take it off and set the Radar for the internal trigger sensor.
Make sure it is not set for "Doppler". And do look at the Radar
before pulling the trigger to make sure the orange light is lit.
And check to make sure the internal acoustic level is not set
low.

You nailed it the “blast” is bumping the batteries took me a while as well to figure out - then external power and life is good

 

[muleman69]

I do have external batt pack, didn't have it with me is all. will try that next

 

[divingin]

When mine triggers, the display goes blank (not black.) A half second later it comes up with the velocity reading.

 

[dttheliman]

When mine triggers, the display goes blank (not black.) A half second later it comes up with the velocity reading.

Thats a feature - are you using the phone app ?

 

[divingin]

Thats a feature - are you using the phone app ?

When I can get it to connect, yes. It seems to have problems about a quarter of the time. Generally comes up with a communication error when the two units talk. Turning bluetooth off then back on fixes it about half the time. Occasionally I end up running from the LR panel.

 

[PhilKeil]

I won't say the batteries are the problem, But ditch them
and get an external power source and cable. Also check
your settings for "Screen Saver" and "Arm time". Max
those out.. Now I won't say the external trigger is the problem
but take it off and set the Radar for the internal trigger sensor.
Make sure it is not set for "Doppler". And do look at the Radar
before pulling the trigger to make sure the orange light is lit.
And check to make sure the internal acoustic level is not set
low.

Question for my education why would you have Doppler not set?

 

[gdbleb]

Good question. Most advice is to disable "Doppler - Trigger Source". I think this is to avoid false triggers like neighboring shots, birds, insects, etc flying into the radar beam. The "Trigger - Trigger Source" is either an acoustic blast (or something like that) or an external trigger like the JKL or Piet (?). The external trigger is MUCH more reliable. Positioning for a "blast" trigger is a dark science. Then again I may be wrong on all this but the external battery and trigger have eliminated the headaches and frustrations for me.

 

[PhilKeil]

Thank you was curious as to reason.

 

[divingin]

Good question. Most advice is to disable "Doppler - Trigger Source". I think this is to avoid false triggers like neighboring shots, birds, insects, etc flying into the radar beam. The "Trigger - Trigger Source" is either an acoustic blast (or something like that) or an external trigger like the JKL or Piet (?). The external trigger is MUCH more reliable. Positioning for a "blast" trigger is a dark science. Then again I may be wrong on all this but the external battery and trigger have eliminated the headaches and frustrations for me.

Has to do with stuff that happens really fast.

"Normal" trigger uses the muzzle blast to tell the LR there's been a shot fired (or the recoil if using a kinetic trigger.) The unit then looks for the shot downrange as the bullet enters the radar beam, calc's the speed and distance, and then works out the entire track to get speed at the muzzle and downrange.

"Doppler" setting will wait until the radar beam is reflected (i.e. it's the bullet entering the beam and getting reflected back that tells the unit there's been a shot.)

Which one you should use depends on your situation. Having another shooter nearby but shooting in a different direction may require you to go doppler due to the proximity of muzzle blast from the other rifle. Having someone shooting a ways away but across your line of fire will preclude using doppler, as you'll trigger on the other shooters' bullet.

At least that's how it's supposed to work. I think.

 

[powderbrake]

Question for my education why would you have Doppler not set?

Because the manual says the following:
Select the source of the event triggering the measurement. The user can select from the following: • Trigger : Use the internal microphones built in the product’s enclosure or an external Trigger device. • Doppler : Uses the Signal returned from the projectile to Trigger the unit: (Use of this mode should be considered with large projectiles travelling at slow speed only). Do not use this mode for Firearms, it will affect the precision of the measurements

 

[PhilKeil]

Thanks all. I am considering one in the near future and curious as to all the in and outs.

 

[Ned Ludd]

Phil - I used a MagnetoSpeed for years, but eventually purchased the LabRadar. All I can really say is buy one, you won't regret it. The ability to shoot strings without having the MagnetoSpeed attached to the barrel is definitely a bonus. Certainly there are newer attachment devices for the MagnetoSpeed that allow it to be attached independently of the barrel, but those were not available when I first purchased mine. As has been mentioned, I would strongly suggest purchasing a JKL External trigger. I did so a while back and made my own magnetic mount for it; however, JKL now sells a magnetic mount.

It sound as though the OP's issue might be the power being shut off by the muzzle blast, as was suggested above. I'm not sure why that would happen when using internal batteries, but the connector on the cable for the external battery pack that originally came with my LabRadar unit was a very loose fit and it would occasionally come loose when the unit was buffeted by muzzle blast. When that happened, it behaved exactly as the OP described. I simply bought a cheap replacement cable and the issue was solved.

The first outing I used the LabRadar, I found that the acoustic sensor (internal Trigger) on my unit would not reliably pick up shots with the unit positioned relative to the muzzle as described in the manual. I temporarily set it to the Doppler trigger for the rest of that session and it worked just fine. There was nothing in the velocity data to suggest the readings taken with the unit in Doppler Trigger mode were substantially off. However, as noted above, the manual recommends using the internal Trigger for more reliable velocity readings with fast projectiles (bullets), so I fiddled around with the sensitivity settings and position and eventually found a combination that worked pretty well for me. The problem with the internal acoustic sensor is that the more sensitive you set it (I ended up setting mine on "2", with "1" being the most sensitive), the greater the chance it will be triggered when it picks up the muzzle blast from an adjacent shooter's rifle. It's not a deal-breaker; you can usually tell from the velocity (if it even generates a reading) that it was triggered by someone else's shot. Nonetheless, all those issues were resolved by the addition of the JKL external kinetic trigger. I suspect if I had also purchased a JKL trigger and magnetic mount when I first bought the LabRadar, the use of it would have been flawless from day 1.