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Registered Member #1107
Joined: Thu Nov 08 2007, 10:09PM
Location:
Posts: 792
Shaun wrote ...
Wow, thats pretty cool, Logan. I may order a few of those as spares in case my boost converter craps out on me. The only ones I have ever experimented with are Fujifilm and Kodak; perhaps the boards you linked are from cheaper cameras.
For us its cool of course, but in terms of real-world practicality it can't be good. Charge voltage drops linearly with battery voltage, plus if you get an alkaline battery with higher than normal voltage it would overcharge the capacitor.
Oh and if I were you teslacoolguy, I would use a multiturn trimmer pot for frequency adjustment, but leaving 1.4kHz at the low end of that range, say 1kHz to 15kHz. Don't know haw many volts the insulation can take, but you could certainly afford to find the limit since they are so plentiful!
right ill use a 15 turn pot and as far as the voltage i was able to push 1.2kv ou of a kodak max flash inverter transformer with a input of 4.5v sing the driver that was on the camera so who knows what i can do with a 555 and seeing that i have about 100 of them i can afford to lose a couple and ptting them in oil should let me push them even more.
Registered Member #32
Joined: Sat Feb 04 2006, 08:58AM
Location: Australia
Posts: 549
Camera inverters vary so much. The cheapy ones are so damn cheap in their design, I think they rank among the dodgiest electrical things you can legally buy and sell in a civilised country (along with those cheap Christmas tree lights).
Registered Member #350
Joined: Mon Mar 27 2006, 05:14PM
Location:
Posts: 106
The whine of these things sounds more like 10 to 20 kHz. Also if you operate them with 3V instead of 1.5 you get a higher output voltage plus the whine is gone. And that lack of sound can only have 2 possible reasons. Either it consumes much less power at 3V or the frequency went far above 20 kHz. I guess at 1.5 V the frequency is about 15 kHz.
Registered Member #1348
Joined: Sun Feb 24 2008, 01:48AM
Location: Michigan's Upper Peninsula
Posts: 22
i wonder how many of those boards you could put in series before they broke down. if you ran each from a separate battery, they would float nicely...
ramses, a long time ago i connected 10 kodak flash boards (the ones where you press the charge button only once) in series, each with their own AA battery. i remeber getting a very thin one inch arc. current must have been decent as i could start fires with it. i thought it would be neat to have all 10 powered from one battery, but like you mentioned they wouldn't "float." many disposable flash inverters rely on feedback from the transformer's secondary winding, complicating matters. with a 555-based scheme, however, this might work. might be a fun project.
Registered Member #952
Joined: Mon Aug 13 2007, 11:07AM
Location: Finland
Posts: 388
*wow* one inch arc from disposable camera transformers! That sounds fun. What about overpowering them a *little*? Like from 6V? That should put out some 10 kV!
Registered Member #1107
Joined: Thu Nov 08 2007, 10:09PM
Location:
Posts: 792
Simon wrote ...
Camera inverters vary so much. The cheapy ones are so damn cheap in their design, I think they rank among the dodgiest electrical things you can legally buy and sell in a civilised country (along with those cheap Christmas tree lights).
the only 2 things that i can think of that are cheaper made are those laser pointers and flashlights you buy at flea markets for $1.
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Disposible camera inverter question
That sounds fun. 