I have build several of these and my experience has been:
1) The capacitors develop a memory and don't fully discharge its better to
use a number of them in parallel. This reduces the internal resistance and
provides a better result and less memory loss. The caps must be designed
for flash app.
2) The tube heats and develops some resistance so you need to have enough
time between flashes for them to cool down.
I have designed my own circuit using high current SCR (this forces the caps
to fully discharge by providing a longer connection than the strobe) and
parallel caps from disposable cameras and can now consistently get 12 - 18
inch with #14 fender washers. And you can cycle them very fast (though not
recommended)
Chris Gupta
At 10:34 PM 8/19/98 -0400, Buhatarau@aol.com wrote:
>Hi everyone,
>I was wondering if anybody has experimented with Dr. Bob Beck's pulser and
Mr.
>Thumpy. I have built both but have not attained the power that Dr. Beck
>recommends. In his article, I think he stated that you should get something
>like twelve to fourteen inches of height out of a small washer. The most
>powerful pulser that I have built got only about five inches out of the
washer
>and the Mr. Thumpy only rattles the washer a slight bit. For the pulser, I
>used a very large AC professional photo flash with huge capacitors (old
>though). For the Mr. Thumpy, I used a mini strobe from Parts Express. On
the
>box, it said that it produces 20 watts at 15 flashes per second. Is this too
>weak to gain any benefit? The reason I bought this model is because Parts
>express has a sale this month. One for $20 and the second for $10. I had
>figured that this model would be at least as strong as the Radioshack Party
>strobe but maybe I was wrong. Thanks for any suggestions.
>Mike Takaki
>
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