Having trouble with disposable camera ignition

teledu · Tue May 16, 2006 12:48 pm

Ok guys I’m trying to make an ignition source of a disposable camera, and am really unsure of what to do. Many guides are saying different things so I wondered if someone could give me a walkthrough on how to do this, although I am only having difficulty on locating which component is which. I am using a Kodak Fun Flash disposable camera. I’ve already made some progress; discharge the capacitor and remove the flash tube. The guide says to find the trigger transformer output any ideas what or where it is? And what wires am I supposed to solder too the copper where the flash tube was meant to be, is it one wire on each copper strip or?

Darkside 6ix · Tue May 16, 2006 3:29 pm

ok i think your supased to solder the wires on the wires that were attached to the flash

zvallance1 · Tue May 16, 2006 5:01 pm

pvcpsyco wrote:ok i think your supased to solder the wires on the wires that were attached to the flash

thats correct...you see the two little copper pieces next to where the flash was (in the first picture) attatch the wires to those... then charge up the flash, and touch the wires together and you get a nice satisfying spark...

the camera doesnt really have enought Voltage to jump any decent size spark gap though, so youll have to either make do with having to touch the two ends to some metal, OR run it through a big transformer to get some mondo-sparks

Atlantis · Tue May 16, 2006 6:31 pm

If you look where the lens was, there are usually two copper pieces that are pushed together when you push the camera button, just twist those together in some way and put a doorbell switch or something in one of the flash wires, you can ignore the third wire that goes into the middle of the flash.

teledu · Wed May 17, 2006 1:36 am

So what will happen when i put the battery in , will it send the flash off automatically or keep charging the capacitator? Thanks for the help though. And what sort of transformer should I use ?

Benny · Wed May 17, 2006 3:20 am

the capacitor will charge and then when yoiu press the switch it will discharge.

teledu · Wed May 17, 2006 9:43 am

Ok, thanks guys

FiveseveN · Wed May 17, 2006 12:30 pm

Five bucks sais his next post will be "I did exactly what you said but I can't get it to spark."
A capacitor-dischrage-through-fingers incident is also likely.

teledu · Wed May 17, 2006 1:23 pm

fiveseven ur rite about one thing.............................it aint sparking, but i aint foolsih enough to zap myself....or am I ? Anyways any1 got an idea why it aint sparking cus b because i cant find the camera shot button after i've pressed the flash .. any hints ?

alex bennett · Wed May 17, 2006 6:18 pm

so you have your wires connected to the leads, and have the capaciter charged....what button are you looking for? just touch the ends of the wires together.
HINT: you may have a board that dosent have the "auto-flash" , so try to hold the button down till the LED lights up, then try it.
another hint: Your probley going to shock yourself, I think we all have... but 80 nano fareds wont hurt at all...I found a 160 nano fared cap in a kodak that will knock your socks off

Darkside 6ix · Wed May 17, 2006 6:24 pm

that hapened to me one time and it shocked the bejeziz out of me i got pissed that i had thrown it against the wall and it made a spark(how stupid of me)
it left a black/grey mark on the wall. ill never forget that moment.

teledu · Sat May 20, 2006 5:25 am

ok thanks guys i've sorted it now, just need to find something to hold the battery in

alex bennett · Sat May 20, 2006 10:15 am

i use electrical tape to hold my battery in , i also use a "C" size battery, it dosent make a difference, because the cap can only hold so much, but the led does light up brighter

i think my friend is tring to run his off a 9v