Xenon

The circuit of a battery operated portable miniature strobe light, which can be constructed using readily available inexpensive components, is described here. For convenience and simplicity, an ordinary neon lamp is used here in place of the conventional Xenon tube. The whole gadget can thus be easily accommodated in a small cabinet, such as a mains adaptor cover, with a suitable reflector for neon lamp to give a proper look. Since current requirement of this circuit is very small, it may be powered by two medium-size dry cells (3V) or Ni-Cd cells (2.4V). Transistors T1 and T2 in the circuit form a complimentary-pair amplifier...

Cell phones and PDAs are approaching the limit for small form factors, but their feature sets are growing with new functions such as built-in cameras and even video cameras. The initial in-phone cameras were basic, low resolution devices with little in the way of usable flash capability. However, cell phone camera resolutions have improved and sophisticated flash technology is expected to keep pace. There are two flash technologies used in digital still cameras. The first uses a Xenon flash lamp to provide a very short, high lumen flash with excellent spectral characteristics. LTC offers Xenon photoflash solutions that are simple, compact and efficient (see Design Note 345). The second flash technology uses LEDs...