DIY - Sound Trigger for the Sigma EF-500 Flash

Sat, 2007-04-07 12:23 — udijw

flash sound trigger This article will describe my home made sound trigger electronic kit.

I use this circuit kit to take high speed photos like the nice tomato splash shown here (more about high speed photography setups). This circuit is not complicated and the total cost is low so it is even suitable as your first electronics kit.

This is what it looks like assembled:

The general use is quite simple: setup a noisy event to trigger the flash. Since I am using the Sigma EF-500 Flash, which have an internal "dumb slave", I activate a led to tell the flash when to fire. A more general solution can be found here.

he circuit consists of 2 parts. The first part is a very simple microphone pre-amplifier. The second is the light generator, to trig the Flash.

With "Double-Fire" protection

r_for_sigma_ef_500_flash_sm-sound_trigger-dl

A simplified model - no Double-Fire protection

gger_for_sigma_ef_500_flash_sm-sound_trigger

Delay control: The distance between the microphone and the sound-source is varied, to get a simple timing delay. If you want to see more sophisticated delay circuits, you can look here. This means that the microphone cant be located on the flash. A simple solution would to just put long wires on the microphone. But that would not be a god solution, because the long wire would be susceptible for electric noise. To avoid this the long wire after microphone pre-amplifier instead.

As seen in the picture to the in the top, the circuit is made so that the white LED fits over the sensor in the flash.

This article was contributed by Karsten Stroemvig (aka Lullaby), see his other great high speed photograph projects

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Comments

Mon, 2007-04-09 18:42 — Constantin (not verified)

Interesting

so... how did you do the picture ?

I never did high speed photography. What are the concepts ? Is it like below ?

In full darkness, place your camera pointed to the tomato expected drop point, drop the tomato and expect that the noise of the splash to trigger the flash while camera is on bulb ?

Mon, 2007-04-09 19:10 — udijw

tomato shot, rather then drop

Hi Constantin,

this is a tomato being shot with a BB gun (see the bullet on the lower-left corner). so no dropping as involved.

regards,
Udi

Tue, 2007-04-10 19:49 — Constantin (not verified)

So the gun was very close by right ?

Pretty nice shot Udi! Did you set it on bulb on a dark place as I was assuming ?

Tue, 2007-04-10 22:27 — udijw

thanks

actually, it was taken by Karsten Stroemvig (aka Lullaby). And yap this is the setup

Sat, 2007-05-19 04:53 — George (not verified)

Thanks Udi for this really

Thanks Udi for this really interesting article. Just one question though. What do you mean by Double-Fire protection?

George

Sun, 2007-05-20 00:12 — Ian Cremona (not verified)

Hi, First off I would like

Hi,

First off I would like to thank you for this really useful content, pure genius. I'm not much of an electrical person.. is it possible to buy something similar for the Nikon Sb-600, I know that strobe lights come with a similar system - is it possible to rip it off and use it in this contaxt? If i do attempt making it myself with help, is there any chance of shorting the flash if I do something wrong?

Regards,
Ian

Fri, 2007-06-01 16:34 — drbusch (not verified)

shorting flash

This setup doesn't open the flash up at all- you just use a mic to trigger an LED up against the photo slave built into the flash.

I don't think the sb 600 has this sort of slave, but you can rig up a pc adaptor, letting you use the more general sound/light trigger elsewhere on this site. If you use a PC connection, you could damage something in the camera with enough power going through the line. Alternately, you can use this system, then use an optical slave adaptor on your sb600.

Tue, 2007-06-19 00:43 — George (not verified)

Two questions!

I've tried to build this, and since it's been a long time since I've built a circuit I have two questions!

1) Where do I ground it when it says to ground it!

2) Where do I connect the negative pole of the battery?

Thanks
George

Thu, 2007-06-28 05:19 — Anonymous (not verified)

Grounds

Ground and Negatives are those 3 line symbols.

http://www.kpsec.freeuk.com/symbol.htm

Look for earth or Ground.... A bunch of other symbols here too....

Mon, 2007-06-25 23:13 — Mushroom (not verified)

cullmann 34 AF

so there is no way that i can build same thing for a Cullmann 34 AF?
point is that i don't understand the scheme and i'd have to ask somebody do it.
thing i want to know is that is there some possibility to attach an hot-shoe adaptor there and give the signal to flash by that?

regards, mushroom

Thu, 2007-06-28 05:16 — Anonymous (not verified)

Flash

This project basically triggers a flash based on a sudden noise.

Looks to me that the sigma triggers based on the White LED Firing (white LED's are those super bright ones). if your flash can be set to slave mode where an external flash could trigger it then yes. You could also use a hot shoe adapter trigger any flash to do the same thing.

I guess you could also use one of those $40 (or less) lamp sockets flashes or any studio flash you may have lying around. They Trigger externally too. Just cover any external LED's with Electrical TAPE to stop it from spoiling your shot.

Sun, 2007-07-01 22:22 — Anonymous (not verified)

cullmann 34 AF

mushroom, the cullmann 34 AF must be trigged electrically. You just have to swap the white LED with a optocopuler. Just like in the "DIY - Universal Sound and Optical Slave Flash Trigger"

http://www.diyphotography.net/universal_sound_and_optical_slave_flash_trigger

regards, Stroemvig

Thu, 2007-07-26 21:57 — Deon van der Westhuysen (not verified)

Here is my sound trigger

If anyone is interested, here is a photo of the sound trigger I built for myself: http://www.flickr.com/photos/deonvdw/898161758/. It uses a PIC microcontroller to control the delay between the trigger and firing the flash. It can also control the camera shutter.

The schematic can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/deonvdw/907735400/

Regards
Deon

Wed, 2007-12-19 10:25 — T. (not verified)

sensitivity

Very nice scheme. i've tried to make this one from HiViz, but I was unlucky. Maybe I was using wrong SCR.
But I've got one question about this scheme - can the sensitivity be regulated? I mean will it be triggered from a hand clap or a lower sound or only from BB gun?

Regards,
T.

Fri, 2008-05-02 05:31 — AB (not verified)

flash trigger

I constructed my own flash trigger. I was able to resolve the issues with high voltage and low voltage flash units, microphone sensitivity and delay. Check out my high speed photography gallery.

Thanks,
Ark

Wed, 2008-09-03 10:27 — Phil (not verified)

Hi, I have started building

Hi,

I have started building this circuit ina rush as usual, and half way through i reslised there is no option to change the sensitivity? Does anyone know how i would modify the mic amp part of this circuit to change sensitivity of the circuit?

Hope someone can help, thanks!

Sun, 2008-09-14 17:25 — Eric (not verified)

An easier device

There is an easier way to trigger the flash using a Silicon Controlled Rectifier, (SCR) and a cheap amplifier, all from radioshack for about $28.
This is from RIT, and my Photo Guru Andrew Davidhazy.
http://people.rit.edu/andpph/text-cheap-sync.html
Been using these for years.

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