| General > General Technical Chat |
| Simple way to turn a Xenon flash gun into a strobe light? |
| << < (4/4) |
| edavid:
I think a lot of the posters in this thread missed an important development that happened about 50 years ago. That was when photo flashes were introduced with a variable power feature controlled by a photo sensor. They were and are called "thyristor flashes", even though it's now common to use power FETs for switching. The xenon tube is turned off when the sensor detects that enough light has been reflected from the subject. At the lowest power levels, recycle time decreases dramatically, usually to 50-100ms. So this type of photo flash could easily be modified into say a 10Hz strobe, without having to bother changing the photoflash capacitor. If the flash doesn't have a manual power control, you can tape on a piece of paper to reflect the light into the sensor and trigger the early termination. Of course OP didn't bother to tell us what kind of flash he has, but we can't expect him to start including actual information in his posts, can we :-// |
| Buriedcode:
To the OP: what is your application? You have a history of posting XY problems, and whilst you seem (violently) opposed to LEDs - if you're using a strobe for tach, then I don't see why a gas tube with all its hassle would be any better. Of course there are other applications where it would be more fitting, but you haven't provided any clue as to what that is. As has already been pointed out, the tubes for camera flashes are for low duty, high power. And even then they do still get hot. Try it yourself with the suggestions already provided here and see how long the tube lasts.. |
| james_s:
It's not only possible, it's quite easy. Replace the capacitor with one of much smaller value to reduce the energy per flash and increase the flash rate. I used to build strobe lights out of disposable camera flash circuits which could often be had for free from film developer shops. A diac or neon glow lamp can be used as the trigger. It's almost as easy to build from scratch though, a xenon strobe circuit is very simple. |
| Gyro:
--- Quote from: Buriedcode on January 30, 2023, 04:06:21 am ---To the OP: what is your application? ... --- End quote --- I wouldn't waste your time. The OP lost interest after less than a day and went to play in the 'EV-based road transportation is not viable' thread, just a few threads away. He hasn't bothered to respond to any questions. |
| Navigation |
| Message Index |
| Previous page |