Hacking a camera flash
I was thinking about making a slave flash for my camera, and came across this post, which talks about re-purposing a disposable camera for just this purpose. Sounds good to me! I pulled out an old camera and extracted the flash unit, but unfortunately part of the circuit went with the camera body, and I had to build a little clock to control the inverter. The idea mostly works (I got the unit to flash!), however the transistor overheated and melted part of my board. That needs to be stabilized before the slave flash trigger bit is added. A messy schematic is here.
Update: A prettier schematic is here.


Categories: tech
Just a tip for anybody that wants to try it: I did a project with camera flashes a year ago and asked the folks at my local Walgreens what they did with old dispoables. They were happy to give me all 12 that I wanted for free, even with batteries included! I’m sure this isn’t a store policy or anything, but it never hurts to ask.
Thanks