Viewing Chrony chronograph data on your smartphone

[B52U]

Like many, I own a Chrony Beta chronograph with the display on the chronograph itself. Reading the data for shot strings while keeping the chrony far enough downrange is difficult.

Using a few of the hacks found on other forums I discovered a fairly easy way to view my data on my smartphone, bypassing the expensive printer or proprietary serial adapter/PC software offered by chrony.

Primary source of information for this project: http://www.longrangehunting.com/foru...top-pc-116477/

I found an FTDI usb to 3.5mm rs232 serial adapter on amazon for around $15 (note: cheaper usb serial adapters can be found and used with a spare headphone jack, but this was a cleaner option for me) but with one problem, the 3.5mm jack configuration on the chrony is RX-tip TX-ring and the adapter cable is the opposite. So I opened up the body of the usb adapter using an exacto knife to pry it on the seam and it popped open with little effort. All that was needed now was to swap the TX and RX wires (white and green) on the board and resolder them.

View of the usb adapter prior to switching white and green:


With that done, I verified connectivity with my modified cable using my laptop and extraputty (free download), using the following settings and commands found here:

http://noplabs.com/chrony/protocol.html

In my case the usb serial adapter was on COM4. Using the SYSX command, I was able to get the chrony into PC mode.



Now onto the phone solution. I bought an inexpensive USB to USB micro adapter, and found an app for android called "Android USB serial monitor lite" in the google play store.

The app recognized the serial connection immediately upon plugging in my adapter cable and turning on my chronograph. I can now see output as the chronograph operates and also go into PC mode to retrieve all the string data and email it to myself.

Finished cable with adapter:


Data output from the X.GEE command on my phone while in PC mode:


I already had a long cord for my chrony 2 button remote control, so I used a 3.5mm coupler and a 3.5mm splitter and an additional short 3.5mm male to male cord to connect both my phone to view output and the remote control simultaneously to control the chronograph function buttons while it is downrange.

Approximate cost for this project was around $25 for all the adapters.