uwdiy

Alvaro Yes you can control the amount of light by adjusting the pulse duration

The led that I have been using is a Cree led (5W) from a flashlight. I have also used a led from a camera phone (a lot of light). The led I see on the pictures that Panda have posted is not bright enough. The other thing I'm going to do is to increase the duration of the flash pulse. This can be done using a monostable circuit, in that way the duration of the pulse will control the amount of light.

Here is an easy to make circuit. You can experiment with different led's but I don't recommend going over 6V.

Compare to xenon tubes, led's are less efficient but you don't need a lot of light in macro photography. In addition, the electronics for led's is less complicated. You can turn on the same led's constantly in order to use them for aiming/modeling.

I'm sorry for the delay. The housing was built using a pvc water pipe. One end is glued in and the other is a removable cap with an O ring. You will need a lathe to make the grove for the O ring. I have been using this in no more than 10 m depth but I tested in my pressure chamber and it was ok up to 40 meters. The recycling time is extremely fast b/c there is not capacitor to be charged, like in a regular strobe. It uses 4 1.5V batteries plus a circuit that will switch the current from the batteries through the led for a really short time (2 ms). This weekend I will post a schematic that will help to build this system in a simple way. I will be happy to answer any other questions about this or any other project. Peace

Yes they are trigger like flashes (short duration pulse ) the caps are regulars nikonos protectors caps. Thanks and happy dives

HI EVERYBODY Here an underwater strobe using two led instead of xenon flashtubes. The spotlight is easier to control than using regular strobes with snoots. I think that with the improvement of led technology this is going to be the future. A picture taken with the flash system described above

Hi Alex: Nice pictures! For years I have been using slave strobes off camera in caves and most of the equipment I use are build by me. I can help you build slaves or modify your strobes in order to make your life easier ) Pedro Dorta

Hi: I don't recommend you to use any filter. The more natural light the higher shutter speed you should use to freeze the subject.