Velleman MK147 Dual White Led Stroboscope

Don't let it's size fool you. (Its about the same height/width as the 9v battery that powers it.) I put this together in about 20 minutes, but my goodness, this strobe light works!! You can adjust it to flash from 1 to 60x a second, although you really won't be able to to see it "flash" much higher than 2/3rd setting. After that, the human eye only sees a solid white light....You'd need a high speed camera to slow down the flashing to be able to see it switch between bulbs at max setting.Assembly is really easy on this one....even for the fairly Spartan directions that all Velleman project kits are known for. I like the fact it has an On/Off switch, so you don't have to remove the battery to turn it off like so many Velleman and other DIY kits make you do. The battery in effect acts as the stand for this.But just as a warning....These LED lights are EXTREMELY bright, and the strobe effect is intense, so if you or someone around you has epilepsy, bad idea to use this. Otherwise, it's a ton of fun!

Very easy kit to assemble. Works well within its parameters. Instructions are clear and concise. Highly recommended for beginners.Without hooking it up to an oscilloscope, there is no way to know exactly what the flash rate is, but it's an interesting toy nonetheless.

I put these strobe lights and controller on a 450 size 'Air Wolfe' RC Helicopter and what a cool add-on.They are bright enough to be seen clearly in full sunlight and greatly improves twilight visibility.Very clear instructions and if you have any soldering skills at all it is an easy kit to build.

The media could not be loaded. The schematic supplied seemed to over drive the LEDs so I put it on a free LT SPICE program and modified the schematic for a) faster flash to stop the action better (from 60 ms to 5 msec) and b) frequency range to fit my application. See the photos and video. As is, the LED would be driven to 135 ma (assuming battery can deliver it) and the LEDs are rated at 100 absolute max. Also a 9v supply makes a -8 volt spike at the base of the transistors which is rated for only -6 max. So I put in diodes to clamp that. I changed it to drive at about 35 ma (which is the standard value for such LEDs.) It was bright enough for my use. Plus the SLO / FAST switch was stupid. SLO went from about 1 Hz to 2 Hz -- turn the pot from 0 to 100% and you change only 1 Hz! Ridiculous. I bypassed the SLO/FAST switch and changed the Cap to 47 uf to give me from 2 or 3 Hz up to about 40. See SPICE schematic for info. The video shows the strobe "stopping" the spin of the washer. The camera shutter speed interacted with the strobe flash -- it looks better live but the video gives you the idea. I might reduce the flash to only 1ms and up the drive to 60 ma for a better stop action effect by changing the 4.7k and 56 ohm resistors.

Junk

This is a really fun little kit for beginners or kids. Took about 45 minutes to build and it worked flawlessly. Built it with my son and he loved it. This is obviously a toy,like others have stated, but a lot of fun to build anyhow. The components and board were great quality. All the holes and pads were laid out and drilled perfectly. We had zero trouble building it. Will buy Vellerman kits again.

Given to a colleague as a gift. There were some problems in assembly and the finished product light but does not flash- although this may not be an isse with the kit itself at all. The overall quality os good, better than some, although the PCB itself is not up to basic modern standards. Probably a good beginner's kit.

Had fun building this. Thank you