General > General Technical Chat
Simple way to turn a Xenon flash gun into a strobe light?
NiHaoMike:
Easy way is to add a SIDAC to automatically trigger the strobe when charged.
http://donklipstein.com/kmaxhack.html
Brumby:
--- Quote from: jonpaul on January 26, 2023, 02:54:47 am ---not possible
--- End quote ---
Sorry, but it is quite possible.
Doesn't mean it is a good idea, though.
This:
--- Quote from: Gyro on January 26, 2023, 10:25:45 am ---Camera / flash gun tubes are tiny compared to proper strobe tubes. They are intended for very low duty cycle operation and have very low total discharge life - how many thousand photos is anyone going to take over the life of a consumer flash gun? Professional studio ones are different, they have big tubes.
You would need to drop the discharge capacitor to a tiny fraction of what is typical 330uF used. Maybe 1uF - 10uF depending on frequency. This would drop the energy dissipated in the tube, but also the duration of the flash discharge itself, making it harder to see.
The flash trigger from the camera is usually just a switch contact, but in a lot of cases, this directly connects to the small capacitor that gets discharged into the trigger transformer, so you would need to check out the actual circuitry to trigger it electronically, or just use a 555 timer and a relay.
You haven't given any useful information on what you intend to use the 'strobe' for. Emergency beacon? freezing motion? Disco (???)? Flash frequency / range? The longer light pulse possible with LED strobes (compared to the tiny discharge duration of a flash tube with small capacitor) makes them far better for pinpointing locations.
P.S. Here's an ignition timing strobe that I built donkeys years ago, triggered by the the spark plug HT lead. No it's not mains isolated, but none of them were. Note the difference in strobe tube size against the camera flash tube alongside. I used a 1.8uF film cap btw....
--- End quote ---
BrianHG:
--- Quote from: eti on January 26, 2023, 04:09:25 am ---LED strobes are garbage. Anyone worth their salt knows they’re NOTHING LIKE xenon. The world has become overly enamoured with LEDs being a replacement for literally every lighting category; this is called “the honeymoon period”
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That is a design choice. It would take real engineering and big$ super-high CRI leds to get anywhere near a xenon strobe, yet be safer for the eyes missing all that UV and near and far IR. But who would want to spend 1k$ just on the right custom laser-led with approvals and circuitry VS a 50cent xenon tube.
Maybe one day a serious effort will be made with a custom LED die, but it wont be anywhere cheap as a 50cent xenon tube.
jonpaul:
Strobe was developed in WII by Harrold Edgerton at MIT, the "Father" of electronic flash.
See his papers and books and sir te of EGG that manufacturs the fast strobes, flash, tubes for very high speed use.
Power in W = joules/sec.
Each flash energy in Joules is 1/2 C *Vexp 2.
(volts/farads)
Thus the average power consumed in W = # flashes /sec * joules /flash.
A portable photoflash recharges the cap in perhaps 20..120 sec.
A disco strobe is usually 10..30 Hz.
Thus disco strobes power can be 10s..100s watts,
Photoflash average power perhaps a few watts.
A strobe power supply needs 10..100X the power and power source of a photo flash.
No you cant do it
J
Gyro:
As I mentioned, we have no information on what kind of strobe the OP wants to cobble together. From his history though, I seriously doubt that it is a disco light.
The timing light that I pictured earlier used 1.8uF and 320-340V rectified peak. It was bright enough to see the timing marks in the confines of an engine compartment and worked up to around 1500 rpm / 25Hz irrc and, with the strobe tube used, would have a decent operating life. It would be possible for the OP to bodge something low frequency, even if the tube only survives for a few minutes.
Whether it is feasible depends on some clear input from the OP.
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