P3D Re: Vivitar 283/285

[Bob Wier <wier@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 5:54 AM -0600 on 5/22/98, Brian Reynolds wrote:


|exposure settings.  This can have the added benefit of making the
|recycle time between flashes shorter (since the entire charge was not
|used).
|

An interesting historical note is that the very first "masher" type
stobes were not able to effectively halt the discharge before it
went to zero - so they had a circuit which dumped it into a "quench tube"
after a greater or shorter time, depending on the amount of light needed.

I still have a Honeywell Auto-Strobonar (spelling?) that uses this
circuit. Of course, if the quench tube went bad, then you are zorched.

This unit also used a 510 volt battery (believe it or not) to get FAST
cycle times - less than a second. The Batt was fairly large and expensive. 
The requirement was for lots of voltage but not much current. I was
skeptical that it was really 510 volts until I got my fingers across
the terminals one time (and I can tell you, it *felt* like 510 volts :-)

              Bob Wier
     mailto:wier@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
   2:54 PM Friday, May 22, 1998
   Rocky Mountain College, Billings MT.
 keeper of the Photo-3d and Overland-Trails
mailing lists and the USA GPS Waypoint server



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