{"id":1042,"date":"2012-02-02T14:53:06","date_gmt":"2012-02-02T22:53:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/?p=1042"},"modified":"2012-03-14T18:54:47","modified_gmt":"2012-03-15T01:54:47","slug":"2012-02-02","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/?p=1042","title":{"rendered":"2012-02-02 Disposable Camera Flash"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the favorite devices of the \u00a8free energy\u00a8 experimenters is the disposable camera flash.\u00a0 These circuits can be obtained for free from the local stores that process the disposable camera pictures (I got mine from Rite-Aid).\u00a0 However if you don\u00b4t wan to ask your local store for some free ones, you can buy them from Electronic Goldmine<\/a> (they call it a strobe unit for some reason).\u00a0 I asked for some at a Rite-Aid store and got more than a half dozen, so it would be no surprise if Electronic Goldmine doesn\u00b4t sell many of them.<\/p>\n

This flash unit has three sections:<\/p>\n

DC-DC Converter<\/strong>\u00a0 The battery, DC to DC converter and storage capacitor make up the first section.\u00a0 The battery is usually a single AA cell. The user pushes a pushbutton switch which connects the battery to the circuit, and a neon light lights when the flash is ready.\u00a0 The DC to DC converter uses a high current, very low Vce(sat) transistor to drive a tiny transformer to step up the voltage, and a few more parts, maybe a transistor or two to limit the voltage.\u00a0 A diode rectifier and 120 to 160 microfarad 350 volt electrolytic capacitor to rectify and store the flash energy.<\/p>\n

Trigger Circuit<\/strong>\u00a0 Some of the high voltage is used to charge a small capacitor, which is connected to a pair of switch contacts. The contacts discharge the small capacitor through a high voltage trigger coil, which puts out a few thousand volt pulse to the tube.<\/p>\n

Flash Tube<\/strong>\u00a0 The Xenon flash tube is connected across the electrolytic capacitor so it has a few hundred volts across it, which can give you a wicked shock.\u00a0 DANGER – When you are going to play around with this, you should discharge the electrolytic with a 100k resistor before you fiddle with it.<\/span> The flash tube also has the trigger electrode, which gets the high voltage pulse from the trigger circuit- another source of a nasty shock.<\/p>\n

Some experimenters connect a CFL bulb (only the bulb part, minus the base) to the output of the DC to DC converter.\u00a0 Other experimenters connect the converter\u00b4s output to strings of LED Xmas tree lights.\u00a0 One experimenter tried to make a strobe out of the xenon flash unit.\u00a0 For a strobe, the DC to DC converter takes too long to build up enough energy in the storage capacitor, so he rectified the AC line voltage to get about 340\u00a0 volts.\u00a0 Then he added a circuit to continuously trigger the trigger circuit – may have been a 555 timer chip.\u00a0 The circuit worked, but the amount of energy in the storage capacitor was so high and it made the xenon tube so hot that it melted the plastic reflector.\u00a0 He had to change the storage capacitor to a few microfarads to lower the stored energy and stop the plastic from melting.<\/p>\n

You can do a web search and find many projects using these free, fun-to-use disposable flash units.\u00a0 Youtube<\/a> has a number of them.\u00a0 Also try Instructables<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Back to experimenting…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the favorite devices of the \u00a8free energy\u00a8 experimenters is the disposable camera flash.\u00a0 These circuits can be obtained for free from the local stores that process the disposable camera pictures (I got mine from Rite-Aid).\u00a0 However if you don\u00b4t wan to ask your local store for some free ones, you can buy them <\/p>\n

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