Brighten Your Day With Studio Strobe Power Hack

large capacitor bank for flash circuit

[OiD] picked up a couple of cheap studio strobes off eBay and was not happy with the power control. So he rewired it. These lights are like supercharged flashes for professional photographers, and contain some very large capacitor banks. His first hack didn’t work out too well, and he wound up welding the innards of a switch together. He was successful however, in his second attempt to tame the large voltages.

He’s using two 1N5408 diodes, which are rated at 3 amps, for charging the capacitor bank. A massive 60EPS08 diode, rated at 60 amps with a Frankenstein worthy surge rating of 950 amps is used to separate the charge between the two capacitor banks, and allows one to discharge into the flash tube.

Consisting of just a handful of components, [OiD]’s hack greatly improves the performance of the strobe’s power adjustment settings. He does an excellent job at documenting the hack for all to see. Be sure to check out his bog for full details.

7 thoughts on “Brighten Your Day With Studio Strobe Power Hack

  1. “he wound up welding the innards of a switch together. He was successful however, in his second attempt to tame the large voltages.”

    Does welding use high voltage, or high *current*?

  2. Those strobe capacitors are able to hit your finger with all the current your body can conduct at >200V DC and that’s a lot of current. If very unlucky, even deadly. So if you decide to experiment with strobes or flashes, remember to be extra cautious and do not do it, unless you are well familiar about working with high voltage AND current stuff.

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