I am trying to trigger a special strobe flash and another device by a momentary contact switch that is part of a sealed intelligent controller device. That is the really simple part, as when the controller issues the command and closes the contact, the flash fires. Now the interesting section.
The flash has a trigger voltage of 4.4 volts DC. For several seconds prior to the momentary contact switch closure (approximately 0.1 sec), the controller issues a series of rapid momentary switch closures at a rate of about 30 per second which does not cause the flash to fire. The flash will only fire once the momentary closure is of a long enough duration, probably because the flash has the circuitry to ignore the short duration switch closures. I think this is set up in this fashion to keep this special flash at peak charge right up until the moment of firing.
I would like to be able to know just when the pulse becomes long enough to actually fire this first flash, so I can use this as an output to trigger another device that doesn't ignore the short pulses.
I am hoping for a simple circuit that can ignore the short duration switch closures, and only complete this secondary circuit when the switch closure becomes much longer.
If anyone has some ideas it would be most appreciated.
Michael
The flash has a trigger voltage of 4.4 volts DC. For several seconds prior to the momentary contact switch closure (approximately 0.1 sec), the controller issues a series of rapid momentary switch closures at a rate of about 30 per second which does not cause the flash to fire. The flash will only fire once the momentary closure is of a long enough duration, probably because the flash has the circuitry to ignore the short duration switch closures. I think this is set up in this fashion to keep this special flash at peak charge right up until the moment of firing.
I would like to be able to know just when the pulse becomes long enough to actually fire this first flash, so I can use this as an output to trigger another device that doesn't ignore the short pulses.
I am hoping for a simple circuit that can ignore the short duration switch closures, and only complete this secondary circuit when the switch closure becomes much longer.
If anyone has some ideas it would be most appreciated.
Michael