DIY Strobe Light Circuit

Engineeering Projects

Here is one another application of one of the most versatile IC NE555, the DIY Strobe light circuit. A strobe light is also called a stroboscopic lamp and is used to produce a regular flash of light. The general strobe light has a very high flash energy of about 150 joules and very few milliseconds of discharge time. Due to this property, it emits flash power of several kilowatts.

Various types of strobe light circuits using xenon flash lamps, flash tube, LEDs, etc. posted on bestengineeringprojects.com are listed below:-

  1. High Brightness LED Strobe Using IC 555
  2. Strobe light circuit
  3. Strobe light using Arduino
  4. High-powered strobe light using Arduino.

A small electronic strobe light circuit for dancing lovers can easily be constructed by using timer IC 555 and a triac. A car headlight or an ordinary lamp of 100W with a good reflector will work well.

Circuit description of DIY Strobe Light Circuit

The DIY strobe Light Circuit is built around a timer IC 555 and a triac and is very useful for a dancing lover as shown in figure 1. The DIY Strobe Light circuit is very cheap and thus its cost depends mainly on the nature of the lamp used. You can also use an old car headlight or 100W lamp.

Here, timer IC 555 is used in astable mode, where its changing time will depend on the RC network consists of two resistors R1 and R2, two variable resistors VR1, and VR2, and a capacitor C2.

The equation of changing time is

T1 = 0.693 (Ra + 2Rb)*C

Where Ra = R1 + VR1

Rb = R2 + VR2

During charging of capacitor C2, the output of timer IC (pin 3) is high which triggers the gate of TRIAC1 and thus lamp is “ON”. Similarly, when the charge across the capacitor reaches 0.67 Vcc, the output of timer IC goes low, thus triac does not connect and the lamp is “off”. The capacitor discharge to a value of 0.33 Vcc, which is known as the trigger voltage level. As the trigger pin is connected to pin no 6, it receives a negative trigger pulse and the next cycle starts.

Thus, the discharge time can be obtained as

T1 = 0.693 * Rb * C

And Duty Cycle is D = \dfrac{R_b}{R_a + R_b}

Thus, by varying Ra and Rb, we can obtain strobes of required duration at required frequency.

This DIY Strobe Light Circuit can easily be converted into a photographic timer where the doorbell is replaced by the lamp and the values of Ra and Rb are kept fixed to get % second pulses.

PARTS LIST OF STROBE LIGHT CIRCUIT

Resistor (all ¼-watt, ± 5% Carbon)
R1, R2 = 1 KΩ

VR1, V R2 = 1 MΩ
Capacitors
C1 = 1000 µF/16V (Electrolytic Capacitor)

C2 = µF/10V (Electrolytic Capacitor)
Semiconductors
IC1 = 555 (Timer IC)

TRIAC1 = TRF 840 (N-Channel MOSFET)

D1 – D4 = 1N4007 (General Rectifier Diode)
Miscellaneous
SW1 = ON/OFF switch

X1 = 220V to 9V, 250 mA step down transformer

L1 = 100W lamp

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