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A strobe light is a stroboscopic lamp, or strobe lights, that is used to produce regular flashes of light. Some of the uses of the strobe lights are discotheque dance floors where they give the illusion of slow motion; high-visibility navigation; law enforcement; emergency vehicles; textile industries; optical industries; automotive engineering; chemical; film production; medical fields; electrical engineering; and machine construction. The strobe lights have also been recently in medical research, used to see the movements of vocal cords in slow motion during speech, a process known as video-stroboscopy.
The strobe lights have a flash energy of approximately 10 to 150 joules, and can discharge times as short as a couple of milliseconds. This results I in a flash power of several kilowatts. The larger strobe lights are used in “continuous modes” which produce extremely intense illumination with its light source, a xenon flash lamp. The low maintenance benefits of the strobe lights have made them very widely accepted and commonplace for emergency products even though they are expensive. The history of the strobe lights begin in 1931, when Harold Eugene Edgerton used a flashing lamp to improve a stroboscope for the study of moving objects. He perfected the stroboscope along with photographic techniques that allowed rapid events to be observed and captured on film. This led for a long association between Harold Edgerton and Jacques Cousteau, with numerous expeditions and designing for underwater photography and exploration using sonar devices and the flash photography. During WWII, he “designed strobe lamps for nighttime aerial reconnaissance photography for the U.S. Air Force” which was then directed to Italy, England and France to use. The human eye is not able to see the single movements of the strobe lights, during their quick and repeated moving processes. By the use of the stroboscope, or strobe lights, this process can be seen. Things such as vibration, rotational and other periodical processes can be seen also due to the stroboscopic process, or strobe lights. One of the danger areas for the strobe lights are that it’s lighting can trigger seizures. This is why the strobe lights that sell to the public are limited to 10-12 flashes per second in their internal oscillators. At a frequency of 10 Hz, 65% of the people who observe the strobe lights are still affected and considered high risk. The British Health and Safety Executive states that no strobing should remain in effect for any longer than 30 seconds, due to the potential for discomfort and disorientation. If the strobe lights do not exceed 5 flashes per second, only 5% of photosensitive epileptics are considered at risk. |
Lighting Types and Bulbs