I want to know if anyone has experience or an idea if you can use a cheap camera flashlight to produce a cheap strobe light.
I am currently working with nav light circuits for my bell 222 using a 9V battery, and I am using ultrabright leds.
The ultrabright leds unfortunately only have a 15 degree angle of vision and I was wondering if anybody has another idea, or where can I find better and cheap lights.

I know curtek systems has some "wide angle leds", but can't seem to find a website that sells the leds.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Little Daddy:

Don't know about Mexico, but in the USA you can buy a disposable camera with a built in strobe for $15 or so. Shoot the pictures and request return of the camera, rip the flash out and go. But. These are high voltage devices, and they use a high frequency oscillator for their voltage conversion. Possible RF interference. And their cycle rate is probably lower than you would want. When the strobe fires there is a high frequency discharge aross the flash tube, another possible RF interference source. All round, I'd say a true strobe light is not what you want.

But. A 555 timer can esily be wired to blink an ordinary flashlight bulb. By picking the battery voltage and the rated voltage of the bulb you can make it brighter or dimmer as you wish.

Hope this helps.

Bill.

Yes it does, thank you very much William

Doc:

In the interest of spreading knowledge, please let us know what you end up using.

Thanks.

Bill.

Hey Padrino if you need a circuit drop me an email and I will email you one that you can change to suit your needs.

I am very concerned with the radio interference because I am flying a bell 222 with my hirobo shuttle.
I just bought a circuit from Curtek systems, and I am very impressed with their system. I bought two 5 mm LEDs from radioshack which are wide angle (100 degrees) and 1100mcd, and used them as strobe lights. I wonder if there is a strobe light I can connect to the circuit though.
The kit at curtek comes with two red leds and 1 green led, which are also wide angle (40 degrees). The circuit connects to the rx and you can activate the lights with any channel.
I haven't yet installed the system to the bell, but I will soon. I don't know if I should add an extension to the curtek system to distance it from the rx.
Also I just ordered a revolution whip antenna, hope it helps.

Any comments would be appreciated.
Thanks for your replies.

Padrino:

Hook it up, switch it on, do a range check.

That will tell you a lot more than any of us can without being there with you.

Bill.

Padrino, using very fine sand paper dull the led, this way you'll be able to see it light up from any angle. Using a 555 timer is a great idea to make a strobe, however it will look much better when used with super bright led rather than light bulb. An ordinary flash light bulb or, for that matter any incandescent light bulb does not turn on and off instantly like led does, therefore it will not mimic a real strobe as good as LED would. Go to digikey.com for both the LED's and 555 timer IC's.

Good luck, and if you need any help using the 555 timers just let me know, I'll be happy to help.

Thank you very much patternfly. It is great to see that people like yourselves are willing to help each other in this great hobby.

Thanks for you advice, I will surely try it.

For all of those interested in knowing what happened, in my short experience I found the Curtek system satisfied what I wanted. I made brigther leds using Radio Shack´s 1100mcd 100 degree angle leds, just hooked them up to the curtek system module and presto! I have not had any radio interference, and the price for the module is accesible.
Now I am trying to find a way to install two LEDs in the belly of the bell 222 and look scale-like. If anyone has suggestions, it would be appreciated.

The site for curtek is www.curtek.com

After seeing this post. I went to their website, checked out the system & just bought one with a few extras, y adapter etc. I'm going to use it on my Bell 222, which I haven't started to paint yet. I think I'm going to place them, just like the web site has on their Bell 222. Go to their Gallery, they have 2 Bell 222 videos This is Cool stuff!!!