So, I took the whole rig (much to my wife's glee) downstairs and just did a simple strobe program, 2ms pulses followed by a 10ms delay. This is only using the 50 watter. The results are pretty typical stroboscope shots.
50mm f1.8 Canon Prime lens - light source 6" from subject
ISO 1600
2 second exposures @ f/22!!
This works out to f/1.8 exposure of 1/125 second. That's with a dark subject. This, simply put, is going to be at least as good at close range as a xenon strobe, but FAR more controllable- there's no recharge time, I can set arbitrary intervals for both the pulse length as well as the interval between pulses. I still will be adding the 3 watters and the ten, almost doubling the light.
I was just pushing the shutter release then dropping a lighter on the table. There was a delay in dropping the lighter.
For code, I just modified the delay times in Blink.
I had far too much light to use the lens anything but stepped WAY down.
What this means is that I am going to succeed. Now, it's a matter of seeing how short I can get the pulses and still get enough light. The 50mm goes all the way out to a Beercan f/1.8, if I want it, I can borrow a friends f/1.4 but it looks like I may not even need it.
Got some things to do this evening, then I will hook up the other MOSFET and add in the three watters, and another for the 10watt. The ten watt is mounted on it's own heatsink, so I can use it as a synchronous strobe from another angle to give fuller illumination.
Macro is absolutely possible. We're going to see what it does on a full backdrop later on...