Xenon Lamp, Strobe Lights Electronic Circuits

Xenon Lamp Circuits
Last Updated on: Saturday, June 27, 2009 04:44 PM

Circuits Designed by Dave Johnson, P.E. :

9v POWERED XENON PHOTOFLASH Controller
This 9v battery powered circuit is designed for remote control flash needs. A charge control circuit turns off the high voltage generator when the photoflash capacitor is fully charged. A neon lamp is included to indicate when the system is ready to flash.

AIR TRANSPARENCY MONITOR, XENON FLASH TRANSMITTER
This is the matching transmitter for the above receiver. The transmitter launches powerful 1000-watt light pulses that last about 20 microseconds.

LINE POWERED XENON FLASH TRANSMITTER
This line powered xenon flash circuit drives a small camera type flash tube. It has an optical isolator to allow the flash to be safely triggered from some remote device. A flash rate of 2Hz is possible with the circuit.

Xenon Lamp Flash Amplifier
This circuit has a very low standby current requirement yet has very high sensitivity toward the light flashes from a xenon lamp. When connected to a flip/flop it can serve as an on on/off Controller.

XENON LAMP FLASH DETECTOR
This circuit uses a small 2.5mm square photo diode in conjunction with a 100mH coil to detect the short light flashes from a xenon lamp. The coil makes the circuit immune to normal room lights. Its 10mv sensitivity can detect light flashes from a range of over 100 feet. Reflections from a room’s walls and ceiling is usually enough to trigger the circuit. The entire circuit draws only 3 Microamps from a 6 to 9 volt battery.

Links to electronic circuits, electronic schematics, designs for engineers, hobbyists, students & inventors:

12 Volt Strobe Circuit: this circuit uses12V DC instead od mains AC. This is very good idea if you don't want to mess with direct mains voltage connected circuit or you want to run the stroboscope from batteries. (Electronic circuit added 5/02)

Adjustable Strobe Light: 120-Volt mains power source, up to20 Hz flash rate (Electronic Schematic / circuit added 4/02)

Beat Tracking Strobe: project description using AT90S8515 microcontroller and some electronics (added 5/03

Disco Lights: software and hardware for controlling disco lights from your PC (Electronic circuit added 7/03)

Easy Xenon DC to DC Converters!: (Electronic Schematic / circuit added 4/02)

Emergency Strobe Flasher Generates 250V: 08/05/99 EDN-Design Ideas / (added 8/05) Figure 1 shows a complete circuit for an emergency lamp that operates from a 12V automotive battery. The xenon flash tube requires a 250V-dc anode voltage and a 4-kV trigger pulse. To generate the 250V dc, IC1, a switching regulator controller, and T1, a standard Versa-PAC transformer, operate in the discontinuous-flyback mode. With this configuration, circuit efficiency is typically 75 to 80%. R1 and IC1's internal-sense-threshold voltage limit the peak primary current to 1.6A. The R2/R3 divider and IC1's internal 1.25V reference at the VFB Pin determine the maximum-voltage setpoint. To generate the 4-kV trigger pulse, a standard cold-cathode- fluorescent-lamp (CCFL) backlight transformer, T2, operates in the forward mode. IC2, a dual MOSFET driver, functions as a 1-Hz oscillator and a one-shot for the trigger pulse for Q2. Additionally, Q3 blanks out the operation of the 250V supply during this time. This feature is important because the circuit must reduce the flash tube's anode current to a low level, allowing the tube to reset and wait for the next cycle. Otherwise, the Xenon flash tube may burn out....

Flash Slave Trigger: Flash slaves are used when you need to supplement one flash unit with one or several more. This slave trigger simply triggers those other units. It does this by "seeing" the first flash (using a phototransistor) and triggering the other flashes a few microseconds later. The sensitivity of the circuit is adjustable to compensate for ambient light or dimmer than usual master flashes. (Electronic Schematic / circuit added 4/02)

Flashing Beacon: (Electronic Circuit / Schematic added 10/04)

Flashing High Intensity LED 3rd Brake Light: This circuit to make a flashing3rd brake light assembly was designed to be easy to locate all the needed components and reasonably in expensive to build. (Electronic circuit added 7/03)

Hacking the Kodak Max Single Flash Camera Into a Self Repeating Strobe: this approach is recommended mainly for homebrewing a strobe that is powered by a single1.5 volt battery. If you can use a higher supply voltage, there are better ways to do this. (circuit design added 5/02)

Mini Pocket Strobe Circuit: works from two1.5-Volt AA batteries, based on modified camera flash unit (Electronic circuit added 5/02)

Mini Strobe Light using LED: adjustable for flash rates between40 Hz and166 Hz, based on555 Timer (Electronic Schematic / circuit added 4/02)

Miniature Strobe Light: (Electronic Circuit / Schematic added 10/04)

Photo Flash at 1.5 volts : This model is very simple and charges as long as you hold the pushbutton (added 2/05)

Photo Flash Charger Minimizes Parts Count: 10/22/98 EDN-Design Ideas / (Electronic Circuit diagram added 03/03) Photo-flash and strobe devices operate by discharging a high-voltage capacitor into a bulb. Charging the capacitor from a battery or other low-voltage source requires a step-up dc/dc converter to boost the voltage, typically to 300V. One way to generate the high voltage is to use a flyback converter. The circuit in Figure 1 provides a simple and reliable way to charge a high-voltage capacitor. The flyback converter performs two functions: It boosts the low-voltage input and provides isolation between the input (battery) and output (high voltage). Its main components are the power transformer; the output diode; the output capacitor; and the MIC3172 controller chip, which combines the switching transistor, voltage regulator, and control logic....

Photoflash Capacitor Charger Has Fast Efficient Charging and Low-Battery Drain: DN303 - Design Notes (Linear Technology) (added 1/06)

Photo-flash charger minimizes parts count : 10/22/98 EDN-Design Ideas / (added 2/06) Photo-flash and strobe devices operate by discharging a high-voltage capacitor into a bulb. Charging the capacitor from a battery or other low-voltage source requires a step-up dc/dc converter to boost the voltage, typically to 300V. One way to generate the high voltage is to use a flyback converter. The circuit in Figure 1 provides a simple and reliable way to charge a high-voltage capacitor. The flyback converter performs two functions: It boosts the low-voltage input and provides isolation between the input (battery) and output (high voltage). Its main components are the power transformer; the output diode; the output capacitor; and the MIC3172 controller chip, which combines the switching transistor, voltage regulator, and control logic....

Slave Flash Trigger Circuit: (Electronic Schematic / circuit added 4/02)

Strobe Controller: simple controller for professional stroboscopes, adjust the flash rate in1..15 Hz range (Electronic circuit added 5/02)

Trigger Circuit for Strobes: circuits which can be used for triggering stroboscopes from external signals (Electronic circuit added 5/02)

Typical Strobe Light Trigger Circuit: 555 based Timing circuit which triggers a SCR which controls the trigger transformer (Electronic circuit added 5/02)

Welch Scientific Model 2153C Stroboscope: a schematic for a typical line operated variable rate stroboscope used for the visualization of moving parts as well as rotation speed or frequency determination of rotating or vibrating machinery (Electronic circuit added 5/02)

Xenon Flash & Strobe Page: (circuit / schematic added 2/03)

Xenon flash valve: An experiment of the xenon flash valve. (added 10/05)

Xenon Strobe Light #1: (Electronic Schematic / circuit added 4/02)

Xenon Strobe Light #2: works from115-Volt AC line (Electronic Schematic / circuit added 4/02)

Xenon Strobe Light #3: (Electronic circuit added 10/03)