Hack a flash camera into a emergency strobe light

Step 7 Enjoy strobing!

Have fun with your new strobe! I hope you find this instructable any good to you.

Ideas, help, questions, or something? PLEASE COMMENT AND RATE! Thank you! :-)

Have fun!!

Comments

[vincent7520]

Interesting … would this idea work as a safety item at sea (or do you think the flash wouldn't be strong enough to be seen at a distance and / or the battery would be discharged very rapidly) ?

I do know there are strobe lights used as safety items on yachts, so this is NOT my point.
What is interesting here is that you can AIM your flash at a ship or any other potential rescuer AND flash a light when you think it will be seen … As opposed to strobe lights that flash continuously, thus wasting energy for nothing, or flares that only last a couple of minutes and that a boat has only in a limited number.

If any reader could contribute to this question this would be great, as safety at sea always needs to be perfected as human lives are at stake.

[Bigones]

is really needed the 200v neon bulb? i dont know where to get it?

[kyismaster]

- Neon bulb that strikes at 200 volts or something (I found in some other older disposable flash camera's circuit board).

[naveen_nk]

how can u make rays neutralize?

[qwertyzzz18]

what do you mean?

[tonythemediaguy]

Once you start the strobe, does it just keep going until the battery is dead? Can you turn it off? I was thinking of making something for my rc plane so I could see it at night. A giant flash in the night!

[batterybank]

I would like to know this too. If the led stays on wont it run the battery down?

[suyashugare]

Nice hacking!! Now let me try this.

[Zosss]

This site is fantastic!

[happy_man]

You could add a higher voltage battery to the strobe and put a potentiometer between the cathode (-) and the PCB. Then you would have a variable speed strobe light.

[Plasmana]

I don't think that will work... I don't know, prove me wrong if it works for you.

[Archive555]

I'm likely to agree with you on that. I've tried a few times doing this with previous coil-gun experiments, and it has screwed up my capacitor, and it gets really hot. I have a book, 101 gadgets for the evil genius (not very good, I wouldn't get it unless it's in a $5 bargain bin), which describes building a disposable-camera taser. The author talks about how when he increased the voltage to the charging circuit (he removed the capacitor for this project), it increased the output voltage. He said that when he applied 9v, he was getting around 9000v on the output. This would lead me to believe that this would ruin the capacitor, by means of 'overloading' it if you will, with a higher-rated voltage than it can take. But by all means, prove me wrong.

[Plasmana]

9000 volts?!? No camera circuit can give out 9Kv with a 9v power input - if it did, it would be burnt out... The maximum output voltage would be 2700 volts with a 9v input.

[chip123]

you said he removed the capacitor, so how would the capacitor overload if it's not being used?

[sonaps]

he said "i believe" meaning that if the capacitor was placed back on he, through logic, has come to the conclusion that it would be ruined.

[rocketman221]

I have tryed to get a higher output voltage by increasing the input voltage but it does not work. the boards i tried that on were made for 1.5 volt input but i found that they work well a 2.4 volts with very little voltage increase, but any higher than that and they start to work worse. it is not possible to get 9000 volts from a camera flash board it would arc across the board well before that. 9000 volts can arc almost 1 cm.

[Archive555]

Are you talking about trying to charge the capacitor with it's charging circuit running off 2.4v? Because that's not what I'm talking about.

[Plasmana]

That, I don't if the camera that is given 9v and gives out 9000v thing is true or not, but I will try it to one of my cameras and see what happens... I will respond to you after I done a camera test...

[DELETED_evilfrogie]

(removed by author or community request)

[Plasmana]

I can build one that fixs into your description, but it will be difficult to build...

[mdurham]

A neat idea. Knowing nothing about electronics, I'm wondering what would it take to make the strobe alternate frequencies every few flashes? You know, like an SOS signal... Would it all still fit in the camera casing?