The lamp is probably a tired old dog.

You can buy these tubes new - nothing too fancy about them.

Get a new one and play with it- more satisfying. Strobe circuits are fun to play with.

 

If you want to experiment with these Xenon flash tubes, see if you can find the disposable film cameras where you live. They have a circuit and flash bulb in them, powered by a AA cell. A Google of the type of camera I mean - https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=disposable+film+camera

 

If you want to experiment with these Xenon flash tubes, see if you can find the disposable film cameras where you live.

- Oh, I didnt lie when I said I got this lamp along with other components in a big box from an old timer. I was trying to identify this lamp by remembering very vaguely that I seen it in some vintage portable flash lights for photography when I was little and my dad was a young gentlemen and was doing photography. He is a bigger artist than me. He still makes random photos today but with a digital camera, and is doing it constantly without discern. Haha. The thing is, he likes it or better say, he still likes it. Which is a phenomenon in itself and I respect him for that. He is very old now, he's 78.
- I dont think we still have those disposable film cameras anymore. And those portable flash lights were used for professional, as it was in the 80-90's, cameras like Canon, Zenit, Leica, Lumix, and some other big brands at the time. Still probably are even today some of them. We had a couple of them in our hands and used them, especially me as an adolescent.

 

The lamp is probably a tired old dog.

So that gray metallic marking inside one of its leg is a sign of usage. But not burned. Right?

 

He is very old now, he's 78.

Hmm. I guess in 8 years I will be very old, does that mean I will have to stop:

Designing and building IOT devices,
Choreographing and performing ballroom dance routines,
Weight training with free weighs,
Walking a couple of miles each day,
Designing and building custom kitchen cabinets
Doing the NY Times crossword,
Writing compilers,
and other things I have forgotten since I am so old.

How depressing!

 

The actual cardboard that will be used to mount and build the real circuit:
How clean is looking now and how busy it will look later.

 

to mister @BobTPH , no disrespect intended. Im just stating the facts that my father is indeed on its last years. I know it, he knows it, and is nothing wrong with it, aside feeling bad about it. I certainly do feel bad. Especially in my artist condition. And if it is somewhat cooling you down from depression, ---I--- feel VERY old and im 42. And Im fine being old, or told to be old, that means I have a lot of experience and I am very wise in some elements from my life. Im stupid also with my life as a whole, I know it but thats the cards I was deal with and nothing can change it, well, except you know what. Hahaha. Thats most probably why I lough so much.

 

to mister @BobTPH , no disrespect intended. Im just stating the facts that my father is indeed on its last years. I know it, he knows it, and is nothing wrong with it, aside feeling bad about it. I certainly do feel bad. Especially in my artist ycondition. And if it is somewhat cooling you down from depression, ---I--- feel VERY old and im 42. And Im fine being old, or told to be old, that means I have a lot of experience and I am very wise in some elements from my life. Im stupid also with my life as a whole, I know it but thats the cards I was deal with and nothing can change it, well, except you know what. Hahaha. Thats most probably why I lough so much.

My post wasn’t meant to be serious, just a humorous take on how different the perspective can be on being old.

I am sorry to hear that your dad is on the decline. Partly, I posted that out of fear that I will soon be much more linited than I am now. Hopefully, it did not sound insensitive.

 

Oh, not at all, dont worry. I actually admire a good healthy mentality of life, especially the good life americans are posing. Its very healthy and a very good thing NOT to think on mortality. But here where I live, im surrounded by idiots, that they literally dont know better and they continue in their mistakes as being something normal, never stop and thinking if is good or wrong and actually do something about it. Nah. They know better. Im frustrated with the poor mentality is here. Eh well... so it is really nothing to worry about. Me and my father are very with the feet on the ground. We know exactly what is happening and what will happen in a couple of years from now. My greatest wish is NOT to be exposed and be somewhere else. But... life is life, right? Hahaha.

 

All the pads are mounted/glued. A lot are glued actually. The glue is a silicone based that has a very interesting property. When is heated under the tip of the iron, it does get burned but very slowly. In a couple of seconds, like 10 seconds or so. And I am using this smartly. I am not letting it burn too quickly. If I keep going or return and re-heat it multiple times, it will scorch for sure. But for 2-4seconds is liquid and relatively stable under the extreme heat. The other interesting property is that in the momment is getting cold, it is becoming a solid, almost like a crystal, or like a solid plastic. It adhere excelent to the cardboard and also to all my iron-nickel or copper pads. If you were wondering about my ways... Haha.
- Next, the actual components and a lot of wiring traversing the entire board.
- I wonder if the placement of the bulb is too close to the other components - far right of the board. Because this bulb if I remember right is heating up to about 200*C or even more. Extremely hot and also blinding light. Its a blitz after all.
- Also I wonder if this circuit will only charge once and discharge? - I dont see a press button in the original circuit.
OR
it will strobe ? Blinking?
OR
it will be continuous light?
I really-really wish to be a continuous light.... because I see that dimmer there in the circuit. (I didnt included in this circuit though) but if all works fine, I will mount it separately afterwards.
What do you think it will behave?

 

It's a strobe, with the rate set by the pot (dimmer).

 

It's a strobe, with the rate set by the pot (dimmer).

Thank you. Can it be turn into a continuous light? If I strobe it really quickly?

 

No, not very well. The discharge pulse is very sharp and short. That's the point of a strobe. For a dimmable light, a slower intensity curve is needed so the light pulses overlap. The xenon tube is really the wrong technology for your goal.

 

Zenon flashtubes have limited life.
They can make very powerful bursts of light, but continuous light would cause the lamp to rapidly overheat and fail.

Zenon arc lamps are made with different materials and configurations to illuminate constantly.

 

I had to switch a couple of components around after finishing it.
But it still didnt work.
I mean... I strongly believe the circuit is working , at least this part of the circuit is working fine:

How Im so sure? Because, AFTER I take it out from the mains, disconnect it totally from power, I put my large tweezers over the 2 pins of the lamp to discharge whatever charge is accumulated. And I had to turn around a couple of capacitors to actually fit them with the correct polarity. By the way, the case is (+) and the isolated pin is the (-) of the capacitor. They are made in romania, a long time ago when everyone was making it's own rule. Romanians were in the front of inventing new rules. Haha. So, after I switched a couple of times the capacitors around, put it in power, disconecting and discharge the rails, I got different results, different sparks, sometimes no spark at all, the 10W resistor was boiling in some circumstances, so by trial and error, also the sparks helped me evaluating the final placement and polarity of the caps, I got it right in the end. Why Im so sure? Because now I get a healthy spark on the rails, and also the markings of the caps are oriented to the correct pads in the circuit. It was a pain in the but I manage it. Im not so sure about the middle circuit though.... I couldn't test it properly. Instead of the 1M pot I put a 330k fixed resistor. That should have give me plenty of flashes in my opinion. Im thinking maybe the triac is burned? I didnt test it. I trust it because I usually store good components and I test them before I store. I dont remember this one in particular though.... Hmmm It may be its fault.
All this IF the circuit is wrong. BUT if the circuit is good... then the only problem remains the bulb being burned!

And I discovered now when all the circuit board is finished, that is a small metal piece that is traveling INSIDE the glass tube when I rotate it. So... I start to believe that is a piece of the electrode... hahahahaha. and this thing is really burned. Just look at that black thing it has on top pin.


My conclusion: - I believe I made a good test circuit here, even if the lamp didnt work. I strongly believe the lamp is busted. So mission accomplished. Very hard to build the actual circuit. Eh well. I push it and now is done.
Thank you very much for all your support so far.
It was somewhat fun.
I was thinking to ask you, if I can truly test or measure this circuit output somehow, just to confirm (to myself) that it is good indeed. With some other thing than this bulb. With a protection resistor and a led maybe? Or something that will give me some sort of feedback. You get it.

 

I had to switch a couple of components around after finishing it.
But it still didnt work.
I mean... I strongly believe the circuit is working , at least this part of the circuit is working fine:
View attachment 277853
How Im so sure? Because, AFTER I take it out from the mains, disconnect it totally from power, I put my large tweezers over the 2 pins of the lamp to discharge whatever charge is accumulated. And I had to turn around a couple of capacitors to actually fit them with the correct polarity. By the way, the case is (+) and the isolated pin is the (-) of the capacitor. They are made in romania, a long time ago when everyone was making it's own rule. Romanians were in the front of inventing new rules. Haha. So, after I switched a couple of times the capacitors around, put it in power, disconecting and discharge the rails, I got different results, different sparks, sometimes no spark at all, the 10W resistor was boiling in some circumstances, so by trial and error, also the sparks helped me evaluating the final placement and polarity of the caps, I got it right in the end. Why Im so sure? Because now I get a healthy spark on the rails, and also the markings of the caps are oriented to the correct pads in the circuit. It was a pain in the but I manage it. Im not so sure about the middle circuit though.... I couldn't test it properly. Instead of the 1M pot I put a 330k fixed resistor. That should have give me plenty of flashes in my opinion. Im thinking maybe the triac is burned? I didnt test it. I trust it because I usually store good components and I test them before I store. I dont remember this one in particular though.... Hmmm It may be its fault.
All this IF the circuit is wrong. BUT if the circuit is good... then the only problem remains the bulb being burned!
View attachment 277851
And I discovered now when all the circuit board is finished, that is a small metal piece that is traveling INSIDE the glass tube when I rotate it. So... I start to believe that is a piece of the electrode... hahahahaha. and this thing is really burned. Just look at that black thing it has on top pin.
View attachment 277852

My conclusion: - I believe I made a good test circuit here, even if the lamp didnt work. I strongly believe the lamp is busted. So mission accomplished. Very hard to build the actual circuit. Eh well. I push it and now is done.
Thank you very much for all your support so far.
It was somewhat fun.
I was thinking to ask you, if I can truly test or measure this circuit output somehow, just to confirm (to myself) that it is good indeed. With some other thing than this bulb. With a protection resistor and a led maybe? Or something that will give me some sort of feedback. You get it.

https://www.aliexpress.com/w/wholesale-xenon-flash-tube.html

Buy one on-line. $15.00 or so

 

I remained curious from yesterday and I attached an LED to the output A to K, where the lamp is connected. I put a 10K initially. And the LED worked fine. But when I put it to A to G, the 10K give it's life with beautiful arc sparkling, a bit of majik smoke and completly black burned out. But not from the first try, but from 10'th try. I was closing and opening the circuit from the mains and see how the unfortunate resistor was suffering. Haha. In the very end, I push it too much and the led died as well. Probably an arc. I was overzealous. Haha. I was scratching my brain on the possible cause and then I remembered that is a 4KV there (or more) ahaaaaaa, thats why! Haha. And I put on the A to G junction another led with a 1M resistor this time. Now its stable. The only problem is that it remains lit. It is not flashing. Because this was the entire idea, to test the flashing circuit with it.
It stay lit from A to G as in the red marked picture.
I did mount it from G to K, not lit. Also from G to A, not lit.
This way, empirically, I deduced that G is actually a (-) and now when Im looking at the circuit it is linked to gnd rail. But at the moment when I was testing the thing, I had to try everything.
Im thinking this 4KV on the glass of the lamp is only an exciter somehow and the gas inside is reacting and bursting. I think is an entire physics theory behind the flickering process and is not that simple as I imagined, using an LED.
Remember, all I wanted was to confirm if the strobing circuit is good. Is still not working right now, but I still think the circuit is good and the output is very important as well. Thats why I dont jump to say the circuit is bad yet. Ive read a book or two in my life to know better. I have a very good intuition about things even that my knowledge and experience is not that complete. I was a great physics engineer in another life.
-My question to you is if you know a way of testing the flickering circuit, other than my method that failed obviously, please put it here on the table of discussion. I have no other ideas left for testing.

 

The LED and 10K between A and K should be okay, pulsing the LED at 33mA. I would use a bigger resistor, 47K to be safe.