Ebaybanned Fidragon plastic chronograph

[somegirls]

 

 

I recieved a store credit at ebaybanned and was browsing through their stuff deciding on what item to spend it on. I could just have kept it for good but... you know. Money is there to spend.

 

Anyways, I always wanted to have a chrono just for the fun of clocking my guns at home but didn't want to spend 120,- € on a madbull. And because I had that credit I gave the Fidragon at EB a shot. It's only $57/45€ and so basicly a third of the price of the madbull.

 

It came in a simpy cardboard box ONLY wrapped in one layer of bubble wrap. It is completetly made of pretty light and cheap plastic but there is no play or movement whatsoever, everything is tight and as long as you treat it carefully it won't break.

 

First step:

Installing the batteries. Pull of the cover of the battery compartment and insert 2 of the 4 battery that come with it. Turn the chrono on (the switch is on the back). ######... nothing. "yeah, if course they sent me a frickin broken one..." I replaced the ACM batteries with good old deutsche Batterien but it didn't help. "Why is that battery compartment so loose?"

Answer: It actually takes 4 batteries. The actuall battery compartment is a box that takes 2 batteries on the top and 2 at bottom. So be warned at take a look at the manual first.

 

Okay, so the power switch is a small lever at the back of the chrono. In the center of the front you see the bright and clear 3 figure display, three LEDs on the left for choosing between "rounds per second", "0.2g" and "0.25g". Same game on the right side for "meters per second", "Feet per second" and "joule".

Pretty basic features and I didn't really miss any option. Some people might like to see more options in BB weights but I can deal with it.

 

Clocking:

The opening is pretty wide and it gets more narrow after about one inch, so you can actually stick the flashhider/barrel right into the chrono to make sure you shoot through it properly.

When the chrono is ready the display shows "- - -", in case of a misreading the display stays completely blank until you shoot again.

I heard there are problem clocking gas guns with some chronographs but I had no problems checking my entire armament of GBBs, AEGs and a Springer.

 

I can't say much about the accuracy of the readings since I can't compare it to a madbull or something but let's name it, this is not rocket science and when I chrono a frickin airsoft pistol I don't care if it "is" 0.75J or 0.80J. When the readings are in the ballpark of + - 10% it's fine with me.

 

Oh yeah, as you see in the picture it has a thread at them bottom to attach a tripod. I bought a mini tripod off ebay for 5 bucks and it's great.

 

So overall it's a good item for people like me who are just curious what their guns are capable of or wanna test their guns after upgrading.

 

I got it basicly for free but I would definately buy it again since it is exactly what I was looking for.

 

Functionality: 8/10

Overal finish/quality: 9/10

price: 10/10

 

I'm german so please take it easy on my english skills.

 

 

[shmook]

nice review, thanks!

 

this seems ideal for me, will have to pick one up now...

 

as for your english, its better than mine

 

cheers,

 

shmook

[TBoy25596]

Useful review, was thinking of getting one and these seem pretty good for the money.

 

So when chronoing the same AEG 10 times you would get readings within +- 10% you say?

 

Thanks.

[somegirls]

I'd say that depends how well the AEG runs.

 

As for the chrono I can't tell how accurate it is since I didn't have any chance to do some side by side chrono readings "against" for example a Madbull.

That 10% was just a number I threw out there.

 

 

geez, there's such a bunch of typos in it. I gotta give myself 5min to read it again before I submit it next time.

It's well, kinda embarrasing.

Edited June 11, 2009 by somegirls