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46 Comments
Thanks Matt for walking through explaining “how does it work” – that was really really useful to me.
You’re very welcome! Let me know if any part of it is confusing — I know there are parts of the explanation that are still a bit rough.
Very nice tutorial, I look forward to building my own.
Any chance of a parts list? I know its all there in the text, but a simple list would be helpful.
I’m happy to oblige! I’ve added a parts list at the end of the article.
Pardon my ignorance…
This will be my first blind leap into constructing a circuit based on a schematic. I’m assuming that Every point labeled as “Vcc” is where the 5 volt power connects? Second, I’m a bit confused as to the symbol between pin 3 on the 555 and and pin 1 on the 4743a. Thanks for your time. We all have to start somewhere, right?
Those are both great questions! Yes, the 5v output from the MAX603 is what all the pins labeled Vcc connect to.
The symbol between the 555 and the 7473 is just a visual aid to demonstrate that the line is normally low, but will go high for a certain amount of time, then go low again. It’s similar to the symbol above pin 2 of the 555 — which notes that the line is normally high but pulses low.
Neither of those symbols are an industry-standard, but they helped me remember what’s going on. Hope I was able to shed some light on the issue!
ha ha, me again. A trip to the local radio shack yielded a ton of different npn and pnp transistors. What should i be looking for? Thanks again.
Any of them should work — we don’t need transistors with a high beta for this project.
Nice tutorial and explanation of circuit–despite me being lazy and not really saying anything about it. One good idea is to use diode lasers rather than IR diodes since this gives very precise triggering and easy adjustment of sensitivity.
Using diode lasers is an excellent idea. I hadn’t done the research to find out what all was needed to drive them, so I took the easy route — but that would definitely improve this circuit.
Thanks for the suggestion!
First of all, good job on the tutorial. Second, my flash would not trigger using the suggested relay. I have an old Vivatar flash I bought in the 1970′s. I ran across this website, http://www.carlmcmillan.com/Optoisolated_Adapter.htm which uses an SCR to trigger the a flash. I had an old 2N4171 SCR in my junk box and hooked it up to the outputs of your relay circuit in the manner shown in the above article. It worked. Probably has something to do with the lower on-state resistance of the SCR or not.
Thanks for the tuturial.
Glad you were able to get it to work!
I thanks posting your circuit and for such a clear explaination of how it works. I was wondering if there is way to modify your circuit so that the flash fires when a common red LED turns on as opposed to when an infared beam is broken? I would like to be able to point a detector at an LED and have the strobe trip the moment the led lights up.
Hi John,
The photodetector listed for this circuit might work as-is, depending on what kind of light is put out by the red LED. Otherwise, you’d need to find a phototransistor that responds to red light — I suspect those should be in ready supply at Digi-Key, Jameco, and the like. Let me know if you find one that works well!
Cheers,
Matt
please i need your help im not good at electronics but im learning
i like the way you wrote the explination it really helps,
here is my problem i need to build a lightning trigger
im currently in Iraq and i will be in storm seaso shortly unfortuanaty the Schematics i have i have been unsuccesfull could you please look over the schematics and make recomendations first circuit
http://www.technick.net/code/cp_dpage.php?aiocp_dp=cir_solorb_lightning
does not fire i think one of the problems is the one of the leads from the 4047 is going to +- power the one im most concerned about is pin 8 the schematic i attach my trigger to my cam with a remote cord
the second is http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~kbagshi/blitze.shtml
Thanks in advance
btw i can call or be called i have a US based number
The schematic at http://solorb.com/elect/lightning/ looks like it should work just fine — I don’t see anything wrong with it…
This is very nice tutorial.
But I’m completely useless with that. Would you build it for me?
I want to use it with D70 Nikkor and sb600
Regards
MIKE
I love the circuit, having problem locating the PVA33. Any ideas where I can find it or an equivalent.
Hi Bryan-
Any normally-open solid-state relay should work. It doesn’t need to be able to handle a great deal of current.
Hope that helps!
I have a couple questions about your flash trigger circuit.
1. Is the 3.3k resistor value critical or could I use a 5k instead without problems?
2. On the same part of the circuit is that diode a regular LED or is it another type of diode?
Other than that I just want to say thanks for putting this information out there for other photographers to use.
Hi Ernie – a 5K resistor should work fine, and yes that’s a regular diode. That part of the circuit pulls the reset pin low for a brief moment when power is applied.
Hope that helps!
nice tutorial…
but i have some doubts…
can we use 7805 ic which outputs 5v instead of MAX 603??
and also can we use an opto coupler insted of PVA33N solid state relay??
Yep, that should be fine.
your ckt is good.
can you send the clap triggered ckt? please
frineds,
I have built a kit using this intrusction. However, I do nto have consistent triggering. SOmetime, I got good triggering all the time, sometime, I got few about of 50 drop. Does IF sensors require certain drop requirement such as speed, aceleration, liquid transparency ??
Please advise
See my website for the one I took : http://www.flickr.com/qnguyen4490
Those photos are gorgeous, Quoc! Nice work.
How are you making the droplets? I found that the most common reasons for the circuit not to fire were
a) the emitter and detector aren’t aligned
b) the droplet didn’t pass exactly between the two
c) there’s excess light getting to the detector (when the drop falls, other light still keeps the detector turned on)
d) the variable resistor on the detector isn’t tuned correctly (you want to adjust it until just the slightest interruption in the beam causes the circuit to trigger)
I found that adding some heat-shrink tubing around the emitter and detector helped — it meant they could only look straight ahead, so it was obvious when they weren’t aligned right and the detector couldn’t pick up ambient light from the surroundings.
Does it trigger consistently when you pass your hand between the emitter and detector? If (a)-(d) above are correct, this should work every time.
Matt,
If I use notebook AC adapter to power the kit ( current range is from 3v-12V, is that a problem ?
hi matt…
it’s very nice of you to make this circuit availaible…
m not very gud at elecronics..
so can u pls mail me the PCB…if u can so that it will be easy for me to get the work done….
thanx in advance….
tk cre…
hey , I’m new to this kind off stuff so i didn’t completely understand all of it but it was still a good tutorial. being new i have no idea how to convert a schematic to a design for a PCB so if you could post one i could print with eagle cadd that would help a lot. im fairly confident i can take it from there. one more thing id like to have the transmitter and receiver fairly far apart ( 5 ft or so ) and ive seen a set up using a laser and a solar panel type thing…. how ever i have no clue what alterations this would require….
@aditya/confizzled –
Your best bet here might be to purchase a breadboard and assemble the circuit there… once you have that working, you can recreate it on a pre-printed PCB that has similar traces.
Do you have a PC Board layout for the trigger and power supply?
Do you have a way to trigger the flash from a flash mounted on the camera with out wiring?
Do you have a way to trigger the flash from a sound?
Gread info.
I don’t have a PCB layout… if I remember correctly, I soldered this on a prefab board that had traces approximating a breadboard.
I haven’t built a wireless trigger system.
You should be able to trigger it from sound if you replace the light trigger circuit with a microphone and wire it such that sound produces a dip in voltage.
hey i have an automatic camera. would this work with that. and please mail me the PCB if possible
Mat, great schematic. After some time, and some modifications because I use some sifferent components, I got it all working. But what I wonder, how big is the maximum gap between the LED and the phototransistor, I can reach about 2 inch max. But my feeling is it should possible to have a larger gap, so it would allow bigger object to pass through.
Thanks!!
Patrick
Patrick, you’re very welcome! Two inches sounds about right from what I remember… you could replace the detector with a Darlington phototransistor, those have a second transistor that acts like an amplifier to add some gain — it could probably pick up the emitter from farther away.
Nice work!
Matt
Thanks for the swift reply. I’ll see when I have some time to change it to increase the distance. Meanwhile I added a sound trigger as input detection, I already notice that youreally need the delay for breaking/falling object ;-)
Great fun to work with, although my workbench gets rather messy by object falling into liquids…
Give a shout if need the sound trigger schematic.
Best regards
Patrick
can this be triggered by sound. If yes how?
sorry, i didn’t read the whole post.
Hi, nice strobe layout. Do you think that it also could be used as a simple slave flash (triggers with a camera flash?) Im looking for a delayed flash.
Awesome, thanks for sharing.
“me really agreed with this project…”
myself a b.tech 2nd year student…
while working on projects then …
we find ur ideas which hepls us to come in front…
to do something….!!!
thanks “sir”
“MOHSIN
DEEPAK JHA
KAPIL GOURH”
hii matt
i hve never workd on a project yet..into my 2nd year..found ur ckt interesting..cud u plz mail me its pcb diagram..thanks in advance..
iamfirst time trying to do project,urs is an intresting one.iam a be second year student.sir plz send me details ,circuit diagrams ,pcb diagrm and total cost it wud be as soon as possible.sir kindly do the need. i vl b thankful 2 u.
hello i was just wondering if you knew any cool projects that have two inputs ant two outputs. I have a class project coming up soon and i was just wondering if you had any pointers, or where i could find a good project. Thank you
i have new idea from this circuits thanks
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