Speed up the SnapShotII Strobe Light
XenonFlashTubes, originally uploaded by Quaketronics Tom.
I tried kalimistuk’s technique for speeding up his strobe light. Kalimistuk modified the UK equivalent of the SnapShotII. He replaced the flash tube with a smaller tube to speed up the flash. I used a Radio Shack 272-1145 Xenon Strobe Tube, which is available for $4.75 from www.radioshack.com. I made some measurements and found that I also got a speedup.
This simple modification sped up my SnapShotII from a flash duration of about 70uS to about 40uS. That is equivalent to a speedup from 1/14,000 of a second to 1/25,000 of a second. The new tube turns off more quickly, which will help reduce the high-speed smearing even more.
The SnapShotII has a clear plastic cover on the end. This cover protects the bulb and probably also acts as a UV filter, blocking out the UV light that a bare xenon strobe tube produces.
The cover comes off easily. The bulb pulls out of a socket at the bottom of the reflector. Unplug the strobe first! After unplugging, wait at least 72 seconds before replacing the tube. This allows enough time for the high-voltage capacitors inside the SnapShotII to discharge to a safe voltage. Replace the cover after changing the flash tube.
The pins for this socket are the same as the pins used in an 8-pin vacuum tube. My junk box has plenty of old tubes, so I sacrificed one to get some pins. I soldered a Radio Shack 272-1145 Xenon Strobe Tube ($4.29 at www.radioshack.com) to three pins. The result is shown in the picture above. The original tube is on the left and my replacement tube is on the right. I plugged the replacement tube into the SnapShotII and measured the optical output with a photodiode and an oscilloscope.
This new tube does gets a hotter than the larger tube in the SnapShotII. This shouldn’t be a problem as long as you don’t run the strobe at too fast a flash repetition rate. At a high flash rate of many flashes per second, the tube may melt the solder joints, or I suppose something could potentially catch fire, which would be very bad! This overheating problem is worse with smaller tubes. In my first attempt I melted a small tube from a disposable camera! Be careful!
