Hi,
I am thinking about building an ignition timing light: an inductive pick-up timing (strobe) light. I could use an LED or even a small LASER diode if necessary. Is there a web site that shows a diagram or some starting points? yeah, I know, I could buy one on eBay or at WalMart, but where is the fun then??? BTW: this is used to adjust the ignition on a car.
At night, presumably. There's a reason the commercial lights use discharge tubes.
Google is your friend.
These point to Silicon Sam's site and Don Klipstein's mirror.
You may find more here:
At night is fine. As I said, I also have a LASER diode available. That think is only a few mW, but it is very well colimated. Daylight, you see it 10-20 meters away, maybe more.
Yes, but the spot is minuscule. A timing light needs enough spread to illuminate the timing marks, numbers and index simultaneously.
And you 'flash' it on for a fraction of the time - the output is reduced to that fraction.
Photo flash discharge tubes and power are cheaply gotten from a disposable camera. Replace the cap by something much smaller.
Classic timing guns used a pickup clamp on a spark plug cable (capacitive coupling), and a long spark plug cable that just connected to the trigger terminal on the flash tube.
Simple, huh? But if you can't reach the coil output and need to work from the trigger signal, it is still not too complicated.
Thomas
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