Modular Xenon Strobe

Abstract

Many readers of this book will be familiar with the xenon strobe already, in one of its two most common guises — the ‘disco strobe light’ and the photographer’s ‘electronic flash’. An intense and very brief flash of light is produced by discharging a high-voltage, high-capacity capacitor into the xenon tube, a glass tube containing pressurised xenon gas. The xenon strobe has a surprising number of uses, and a standard circuit can be used for most of them. A standard xenon tube, such as the MFT110, MFT106, or Tandy’s ‘replacement tube’ can be used for mains-powered operation without a transformer — and is therefore cost-effective in most applications.