Hello there

Thanks in advance for your time. I would like to have the opinion of the experts here.
A few months ago I bought a 12V Strobe Module with a xenon flash tube from a company called XenonFlashTubes. By the way it stopped their business without any previous notice some months ago and their web page went down.

(Pictures of the original Board)




Well back to the topic.......The brightness emitted by this card was not as strong as expected then I wrote to the manufacturers and they responded this at the time:

The setup of two additional capacitors as I suggested will give 32J which is almost like a camera flashgun.
after the modification I suggested, you will get a 32J flash every 4 seconds or so. (not exact number)
The stock factory capacitor for this board gives about 0.35J per flash.
You can connect two capacitor in series, each 330v 560uF, it will make a 660v 280uF capacitor.
charged to the module's output of 480v+, it will give you 32 Joules.
It is comparable to almost full power professional camera flashgun.
it will take about 3-4 seconds to charge, so it will flash every 3 seconds or so

Finally I changed the polyester capacitor included for a electrolytic one. I think is a 100uf 440V.



Things were good for some days using it from 2 to 10 minutes laps per day but something went wrong after and the flash didn't work again. I would like to know where the error was and if it is feasible to fix the module and what tests I could do. The capacitor appears to charge perfectly but there is no flash. The stock mosfet was changed for a more robust one (replacement) but it didn't work either. The reference for the new one was IPP110N20NA






I dont know what else to do

They promoted this board as a "customizable" module in terms of the capacitors used in order to perform brightness and flash rate changes.
By the way At the time of the failure in the enclosure where the board was installed, a very small residue was observed, apparently coming from the small triggercoil flyback.
Maybe I forgot to take into account the heating that occurs in the card after the change. I dont know :-( :-(
Also I do not know if it was necessary to place a "protection" diode that a friend recommended me and that I forgot to weld



This is my first message in this valuable forum. Sorry for the mistakes

Thank you!!

 

Maybe the high current pulses are what killed your electrolytic capacitor. With the capacitor gone, the flyback pulse could have increased in amplitude, killing the MOSFET. You might want to go back to film capacitors that can handle the peak currents.

 

Thank you Dick!!!!.
One last doubt please.... Do you think it was necessary to place the diode 1N4007 as a friend suggested in order to protect the capacitor?? (see picture diagram) Or that wasn't decisive.... :-( :-(

I soldered back the original polyester capacitor leaving the new (stronger) Mosfet but nothing happened. Just small sparks in the positive terminal (almost imperceptible) just connecting.
Do you think the flyback could could have any damage? Is there a way to test taking it off the module??? The xenon tube itself looks very traslucent with no residues inside. I would think that it has no problems.

Thank you for your time!!

 

Transformers are usually the last thing to go. The semiconductors are usually the first things to go.

About the 1N4007: Was a 1N4007 in the original circuit (being a through-hole part on a surface mount board it doesn't look like it), or was it some other '4007 such as FR4007 or recently added? From what little I know about this kind of circuit, I don't image a diode would be needed across that large capacitor. I would get back to the original circuit and go from there.