I thought I was going to be more diligent about posting in this blog. That didn’t work out.
So the project that I’m working on now is an LED stroboscope/strobe light/flash unit. This started with me wanting to do some photography of motion with multi-flash. Of course, I could have just used a camera flash that supported that mode, but what fun is that? I started thinking about how it could be used as a stroboscope or as a strobe light. And then I started thinking about different ways of triggering (breaking a beam, sound) and of course I was then overcome and I had to build it.
I found a 100W LED on Amazon that became the basis for Ultrablinky. And I picked the PJRC Teensy 4.0 as the controller because it’s very fast and has some nice PWM outputs as well as good audio capability. You should go buy a few. I have no association with PJRC, but I like their boards.
Design of the PCB was done in KiCad, because it is an amazingly capable, yet easy-to-use EDA package. PCBs and components are on order now. Once I receive them, the fun begins! Well, actually designing the circuit and PCB were fun, so let’s just say a different kind of fun begins. Hopefully I can get through the first build with a minimum of blue wires.
If blinking an LED is the “Hello, world!” for hardware, this 100W LED is going to be a monster HELLO WORLD!
Wish me luck!
g.k

