March 3, 2019, 9:20 pm
I was doing some experiments which involves switching high voltages (>3 kV) under high current (>30 Amps) load. Although solid state devices such as SCRs (Silicon Controlled Rectifier, or Thyristor) or IGBTs are the ideal candidates for this kind of operations, the prices for these devices are through the roof (1, 2) when the breakdown voltage exceeds the 3kV threshold. I did have a couple of QIS6502002 6500V 25A IGBTs I bought on eBay many years ago but as it turned out they were quite fragile, a few minor overloads during my experiments was enough to destroy them unfortunately.
Continue reading ‘Experiments with a Hydrogen Thyratron’ »
November 23, 2012, 8:21 pm
Simple slave camera flash (or synchronous flash, like this one I built earlier) works great with older film cameras, but does not work with modern digital cameras. This is due to the fact that the majority of the digital cameras nowadays employee a so-called pre-flash for metering purposes prior to the actual shooting. The pre-flash causes the slave flash to be triggered prematurely which inter has a detrimental effect on the picture taken, causing the scene to be darker then done without using the slave flash since the camera thinks the environment was lighter than it actually was when the slave flash was triggered. Continue reading ‘Advanced Slave Camera Flash Controller’ »