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LED Strobe Light?

xean1000

Scholar
xean1000
Joined
Jul 10, 2009
Messages
65
Does anyone have a good WORKING schematic that makes a strobe affect with LEDs and is able to controlle the speed of the flashing?
 
xean1000 said:
Does anyone have a good WORKING schematic that makes a strobe affect with LEDs and is able to controlle the speed of the flashing?
Click to expand...


There's an IC chip you can buy from Radio Shack that will do most of what you want. It's called a 555 chip. They cost less than $2. It's a simple timer which can be easily built into a flashing unit or even a small chase light system with a couple dollars worth of parts. A capacitor, a couple of resistors, a potentiometer, a battery, and a few inches of wire are about all the materials involved.

I used to do exhibition kite flying, and we used LED flashers on the wingtips for night flying. I recall that I designed a functional LED flasher circuit with not much more knowledge than the spec sheet that came with the chip. It fit in a space smaller than a matchbox and I think it ran on a 9V radio battery, or maybe it was a couple of AAAs.

Here are some links that might get you started...

http://www.eleccircuit.com/ic-555-led-flasher/

http://wild-bohemian.com/electronics/flasher.html

http://www.electronics-project-design.com/LED-Flasher-Circuit.html

http://www.qrp.pops.net/LEDs.asp
 
xean1000 said:
Does anyone have a good WORKING schematic that makes a strobe affect with LEDs and is able to controlle the speed of the flashing?
Click to expand...

Google "555 led flasher" and select Images. You'll see 11600 answers...
 
There's an app for that on android called Torch (Google android torch app) the source code is available on Google Code on my phone it goes from 1 to 33HZ
 
Don't forget the venerable 3909 chip. It was a bit of a failure, in that it was supposed to specifically be for LED strobes, and wasn't very versatile for other purposes, but they do draw a lot less current than the 555 and take fewer external components. They can be found in the fake car alarms and security cameras, where they can flash an LED for years on a single C-cell battery.

I found lots of circuits just by googling the terms LED flasher circuit.
 
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