The core emitter has arrived... 3500 lumens of 3000K, a fifty watt warm white LED array. Eighteen bucks.
Guys, understand.. I know the physics I am facing.. But I am also depending upon the inverse square of the distance from the source. I am not lighting a room.. At best a field of a few square feet... And I already have the Fresnel lens for focusing this behemoth. This is an exercise in "let's see if I can make this work somehow".... And I do have a few tricks in reserve, including having harvested a dozen xenon flash units from disposable cameras. They are perfect for some things when triggered through a simple optoisolator. It is important to keep in mind that I am not trying to make something that's a normal use flash.. It'd be cool as hell for milkdrop photography, or a feeding hummingbird for example.. Very close, macro even. The power decreases by the SQUARE of the distance, so I believe that I have a fighting chance at getting at least some limited success with over 100 watts of LED's. Note that stage professional PAR cans are now 100w LED arrays already...that's replacing carbon arc in some cases.
That is a professinal stage flood, LED... Five hundred bucks. I am cautiously hopeful seeing these products.
I really am caught up with the 'If I can get this working at any level, it would be a very cool tool' thing. If it doesn't pan out as a strobe, it's still a solid state floodlight that is a consistent color every time.. That alone is worth the cost of the parts.. The total on this now.. Hmm.. Like thirty bucks.
It will probably be several days until I can hook it up, in any case.. Gotta now look at the best way to feed that LED. It'll be PWM'd with MOSFETS, but I will be taking a little time looking for a good current regulator setup for it... Though I understand there is a variation on LM317 thing with a feedback loop, that easily can do.
It's got to limit at 2.5-3amps at 16-18v, anyone got a particulary cheap and easy solution (I love LM317 regulators.. and I have a bunch...but current sources couldn't run tandem due to tbe feedback circuit, right? If they can, easy enough to tandem the little beasts.. Three would be plenty, an amp each...)