I want to build a timing light like this https://www.ebay.com/p/Car-Motorcyc...tive-Xenon-Tester-Auto-Engine-Tool/2096901646 for testing vehicle's ignition timing. So basically, it works by plugging red and black clamps to the battery positive and negative terminals respectively and the third clamp (the big square clamp) will be latched to the high tension wire of the vehicle spark plug and whenever that sparkplug fires, the timing light will turn on as in this video
I'm wondering if a DIY of such tool is possible and what will be the components for the project. The hard part I guess will be the clamp that picks up signal from the spark plug wire. So far, I have found 2 possible schematics which are quite different: https://imgur.com/Uz81Mfb from http://citroen.tramontana.co.hu/en/ignition/stroboscopic-timing-light or this https://imgur.com/dhGSf0L where a 555 timer is used and the pickup sensor is a ferrite core looped with 250 turns of 28 gauge copper wire.
I don't know much about electronics so I don't know which schematic will be more suitable.
I'm wondering if a DIY of such tool is possible and what will be the components for the project. The hard part I guess will be the clamp that picks up signal from the spark plug wire. So far, I have found 2 possible schematics which are quite different: https://imgur.com/Uz81Mfb from http://citroen.tramontana.co.hu/en/ignition/stroboscopic-timing-light or this https://imgur.com/dhGSf0L where a 555 timer is used and the pickup sensor is a ferrite core looped with 250 turns of 28 gauge copper wire.
I don't know much about electronics so I don't know which schematic will be more suitable.