high voltage photo flash capacitor charger

[ante1]

Hi Steven,

I don’t think you could zap the capacitors back to life; you have to charge them slowly through a resistor up to the work voltage.
BTW, what can you tell us about the “I work on other ideas” thing? ;D

 

[steven2]

ante ive got my second high voltage photo flash capacitor charger to fiinish yet , and ive got one more hv trippler left and if i biuld another high voltage output ignition coil driver ill include the trippler and hopefully one of my 2 high voltage resister deviders, allso ive been collecting more circuits that could be used for listening to yowies, the australian version of the american bigfoot , and dispite putting my hydrogen generator exsperiments on hold for a while i plant to get back to it and hopefully power it with the hv cap charger

 

[ante1]

Ok Steven, I got the picture. And you remember to present your results as they emerge! ;D
Good Luck and be careful!

 

[steven2]

thankyou ante  i think i could make an infrared remote controll hv circuit  this simple idea  i tried first with my photoflash tubes and a transformer in rewverse mode and a 12 volts battery and the light activated relay i posted in the fairchild photo transister topic  now with the infrared remote from tv or video will make the relay of the light activated relay circuit open and close so fast from the infrared pulses it would create arcs through the photo flash tubes , i could do the same with a  car ingnition coil to and ive got a high voltage trippler that will really crank up the arcs. and without the light activated circuit to deliver the volts into transformer i can use a simple sound activated switch so  it could be done that way, a sound operated hv circuit

 

[steven2]

here is another high voltage photo flash capacitor charger  under construction useing  another type of flyback transformer , now this one dosent have a biult in high voltage trippler iether and i used the same components as i did with the first one now as soon as this one is completed well the panel and framework anyhow ill test it out .

View attachment 37425

 

[steven2]

View attachment 37426

 

[steven2]

heres the latest pictures with the framework completed and most of the wireing all done

View attachment 37434

 

[audioguru2]

Hi Steven,
It looks like a wicked high voltage generator.
I can harly wait to see pics of huge sparks jumping all over the place! ;D

 

[steven2]

thankyou audio guru ive got another one to biuld yet so it will be my third one . this one i built for a mate 

 

[steven2]

heres the lastest pictures taken before i put the laste terminal post in and the wireings all done and the pannel work except the lid  and i tested it and it charged up the high voltage photoflash cap so good you can feel the charge in it with your fingers and it sure goes bang when you short it out on a pair of metal tweezers leaveing a  tiny burnt indentation in it , the neon is rated at 110 volts so when it comes on i leave it on a little while longer to get more charge into the photoflash capacitor  and i had only 11.21 volts left in my battery i used from my collection , so at 12 volts i would get more better or faster chargeing

View attachment 37455

 

[steven2]

View attachment 37456

 

[steven2]

heres a close up of the board, note the 555 timer is isolated from the board and the pin positons on the board where the timer would of been has wires from them to the timer pluged into the ic socket which is mounted on an ic mounting board and the timer protrudes out the fron pannel so replaceing it is more easy

View attachment 37457

 

[steven2]

now to look into methods of indicating  when the high voltage photoflash capacitor is charged up, and from  a topic in the high voltage stuff section here i went to a site  of coil guns  or something and found a coil gun circuir that has a capacitor charge indicator circuit in it so i derived that peace of the circuit for indicating capacitor charge, from it and biult it to test and so i run the positive wire form the capacitor charge indicater to the output of the high voltage capacitor charger .  the same wire allso runs to the high voltage photoflash capacitors positive  terminal, and the negative iwell it runs tro the negative output of the high voltage photoflash capacitor charger and allso to the negative of the capacitor being charged , and as soon as i switch the capacitor charger on the led starts to blink on and off to indicate the capacitor is xcharged to a voltage of only half  or less of the full charge, so ive got some tinkering and tests and modificatgions to do to get it right as i want it to blink on and off to the full charge . in these pictures here the transistor is a 2n2904 and the resister on the left that runs to the 10k pot wire positions is a 1m resister and the green cap is 0.1uf i think marked as 104 and the  led resistor is 1k  so you should be able to easily see how the circuit is constructed

View attachment 37474

 

[steven2]

resistor 2 is a 10k variable resistor or pot

View attachment 37475

 

[audioguru2]

Hi Steven,
Are you using a blinking LED that has a built-in blinking circuit and current-limiting ?
What supply voltage are you using for the transistor and LED?
What high voltage does the photoflash capacitor charge up to?
Could you post a schematic of the capacitor charge voltage indicator circuit?

If it is like this one then the pot must be turned down to about 1/4 for it to indicate a voltage of 350V:

View attachment 37478

 

[steven2]

audio guru the circuit is the same as the 350volt circuit attachment you posted here  im not useing a blinking led and the wires from the capcitor charger run to this circuit and from there to the photoflash capacitor under charge,  i havent measured the volts in the capacitor under charge yet but when the capacitor is fully charged or more, then i can feell it with my fingers  and the led blinks like neon lights in camera flash circuits do when they are charged up  its just that i want to upgrade this circuit so the led comes on when the capacitor has the max finger feelable charge on it . now without the circuit i can charge the cap up fully or over easy but when i use the circuit to register the cxharge it is registering the charge in the capacitor that is not full so i can feal it with my fingers so if you have any ideas to uypgrade that circuit i would be forever greatfull . oh yea the cap dosent seem to charge up fast enougth when ive got the circuit in it , but if i was to let the circuit keep chargeing, dispite the led blinking i supose it may do ill try some more ideas and tests soon , ive got to add a capacitor bleed resister yet to help keep the charge up  as i may be leaking to much charge  i think

 

[audioguru2]

im not useing a blinking led..... and the led blinks like neon lights in camera flash circuits do when they are charged up[/charge]
I have no idea how a single transistor can blink an LED without using a transformer for positive feedback. It's easy to make a neon bulb blink by feeding it and a capacitor across it with a resistor.


I have no idea how many volts are "max feelable volts". 300V? 1kV? 3kV?


Of course. The 1M resistor is drawing current out of the charging. Maybe it should use a high input impedance darlington transistor and a 22M resistor. You could make your own darlington transistor:

View attachment 37479

 

[steven2]

thankyou audio guru, my first high voltage photo flash capacitor  charger, charges up really fast as the flyback is similar to the one i used in this second high voltage photo flash capacitor charger , i dont now why the led blinks on and off as its chargeing  maybe , something there to look into

 

[steven2]

ive did some more exsperiments and testing of the high voltage photo flash capacitor charger and by the fels of the charge on the capacitor it must be over chargeing so it appears to be ok but you can use a current limiting resister to help preserve the life of the capacitor , i  charged up a 350 volts 330uf high voltage photo flash capacitor and i discharged it a number of times befor it died so i performed an autopsy on the capacitor and found its foil to be in ok condition and with no damaged whats so evr in the foil electrodes but they were grey in colour and so brittle looking you only have to bend it to much or sqeeze to till it breaks or crumbles to bits but when i took the capacitor foil roll out of its can i noticed some electrolyte soloution at the bottom of the can so i think what happend was to much of that electrolyte got boiled away thuis stopping the cap from working , i got the same problem with another circuit i once made and this one if you short it out i fried all the caps and they look in good condition but there values were much less as if there electrolytes were boiled away i think it was and i tested all the diodes on the same board and they were all ok so it was the capacitors at fault .

 

[audioguru2]

Hi Steven,
Thanks for doing an autopsy on your photo-flash capacitors that died. ;D
It is interresting that they show signs of too much discharge current. They probably have a very low internal resistance and therefore their current must have been high enough when you shorted them that it cooked them. ;D