Strobe light uses

[Freebird]

Hey all,

   I have been reading about strobe lights in displays and I even saw a few in some videos.  I think they look good.  I was given about 2 dozen firealarm/strobes that I have been thinking what can I do with these.  I can disable the horn on them and just let the strobe work but here is my problem I'm hoping you all can help out with.  The units are needing between 16 VDC to 30 VDC to run.  Current draw is .433 A if using the 110 CD setting on the unit.  What can I use to get this VDC to the strobes?  They are made to fit into a single gang box so mounting them and all that should be no issues, just trying to figure out what to provide power to them without breaking my budget which I have already pretty much used up.  

If you want to view the unit it is Genesis G1-HDVM Multi CD Horn-Strobe...24VDC/cc

Freebird

[tbone321]

The MR16 is a DC controller that can supply power to your strobes.

[Freebird]

wait.....  so the MR16 can be set to apply wahtever DC voltage I need???

[tbone321]

The MR16 is designed for 12v but people have ran it at 24V by putting a heat sink on the 5V regulator.  I would look at the MR16 section to see what people have done to allow for higher voltages.

[RJ]

wait.....  so the MR16 can be set to apply wahtever DC voltage I need???

You feed it anything between 7 - 24 v DC and that is what it will then control. If you go over 12 volts I recommend adding a little heatsink (piece of angle alum from hardware store works fine.) I added a place to put the same heatsink as the Express uses on the new ver2 that we just had a coop for.

RJ

[Freebird]

Fantastic!!!    Thank you.  I now have a use for these strobes!!

Freebird

[Freebird]

Anyone have ideas for sources for 24 vdc?

[ThaiWay]

^There are many options from Ray Wu's online store:  You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

Specify shipping via Hong Kong Post, and it's quite reasonable.  Ray is easy to communicate with... just click the chat button.

Hope that helps!

[gfwzig]

i have found and used fire alarm strobes as you have indicated
power supply that i am using is an old printer "brick" transformer cord  about 16 volts
the strobe i have are non synchronized  however the synchronized ones need a trigger to flash them
experimenting on them i was able to wire in an old auto signal flasher in series with a small resistor to increase the load on the flasher to trigger the flash  the randomness of the flashers allows a group of them to not flash in unison
gary