Project Ringflash…
I’ve spent the evening modifying disposable camera flash circuits (including doing things which are probably unwise, like moving the capacitors), wrapping them in gaffa tape and taping them to the inside of a cake tin.
I’ve already decided that there’s too much that could nibble your fingers in this project, so I won’t do a full writeup, instead I’ll stick to posting the schematics/stripboard layout for the opt-isolated trigger gubbins which means that this beast is safe to use with a DSLR.
Still todo:
- Move the charge-ready lights to somewhere visible for each board
- Build the battery pack
- Add a socket for the sync cable
- box up the trigger circuitry
- Find a better way of insulating and mounting the flash circuits
The picture above is the first test firing of the circuit, triggered by my Nik0n D80. It didn’t die, and neither did I. I count that as a success.
you’re not dead! Hurrah!
Ooh yeah… I’ve been bitten by a flash circuit. It won’t happen again.
Good work!
And here me worrying about 240V, and you’re playing with the innards of a Flash. But then, I struggled to remember Ohm’s law the other day…
I’ve not been bitten by a disposable camera flash yet but I know a few people that have.
When I used to head up the photo processing department at a previous job I used to dread having to split the cameras open – which requires a bit of force – and once the film canister was removed we just to chuck it in the bin from as safe a distance as possible (this is before WEEE) and watch them go bang. Great fun.
You should take some of your stuff to http://www.techadventure.org/ it’s at the end of Feb in Bristol, I have guests otherwise i’d probably be popping along.