Rhys Sage wrote:
I found an interesting PDF on microflashes. This is incredibly similar to what I'm planning albeit solid-state instead of using tubes. http://people.rit.edu/andpph/text-microflash-549-manual.pdf R
You might look into buying a used GR StroboTac, which has a microflash tube as the light source (<1us duration).
When it comes to fast switching, you may find that tubes are where it's at. Unlike in a TC, where the frequencies are fairly low (100kHz ish), you need nanosecond kind of switching. Nothing like a triggered spark gap, krytron, or thyratron, etc. for high current, fast rise time switching. There's a reason that krytrons are on the dual use list.
There's an old (C.L.Stong era) amateur scientist column about building a microflash, as well, written by Kim V(something), who was one of Edgerton's students. The design in the column is essentially the same as the one in Edgerton's book (Strobe, Electronic Flash) published by MIT press. If you don't have the book I'd recommend it.
Actually, that book is handy for tesla coilers too. A lot of useful information on sparks and such in there, and it's fairly reasonably priced (a lot cheaper than, say, Bazelyan and Raizer's book, which is even better, but also >$100)
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