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>> Hi, welcome to the sigma path.

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Since the last episode,

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I received a lot of messages from you guys about a type of episodes you like to see,

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and we have a lot of exciting topics to cover in the future.

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A lot of equipment review,

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a lot of component review.

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A lot hacking, and today's episode is also for you hackers out there.

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We'd like to see if you can combine this disposable camera,

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and this Nixie tube. Well, specifically the flash circuit inside disposable camera,

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and the process we're going to learn exactly how

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that flash circuit works at the schematic level,

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and also using some measurements.

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We are also going to take a little bit look at these Nixie tubes.

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So let's get started with this,

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and see what I'm talking about here.

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You can get these at pretty much any convenience store or any big supermarket.

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What is special about these thing is that,

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this particular model has a built-in flash,

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so that's you're looking for.

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If you're going some places that developed the film for these things, they may

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give you a used band for free since really they just recycled them.

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They throw them away. So what we're going to do is,

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we're going to take this apart.

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Take the circuit that we want out of it, analyze the circuit,

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and at the same time see if we can use that circuit to somehow power the Nixie tube.

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So, it will be an interesting combination.

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Am not sure if anyone's ever done that before,

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but there's a lot of cool things that people have done

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using these disposable flash cameras because there's

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a high voltage DC-DC converter that is inside of it,

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and of course a very big capacitor.

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So we're going to take one of these apart,

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and let's take a look and see what's inside it.

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Will look at a circuit, and we'll go from there.

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Okay, here we have a disposable camera with a flash built-in.

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Before we take this apart I have to warn

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you that you should only do this at home if you have

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experience with high voltage circuits

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because even if the camera hasn't been used for a while,

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the capacitor inside may hold enough charge to give you a nasty shock.

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So never do this unless you have experience with this type of circuits.

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These type of cameras are all housed inside a paper containers.

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This is done because they want to be able to

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take this apart very quickly, and take the film out.

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So I've already taken this apart so we can throw that away.

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The top and the bottom are held together using these little plastic pins.

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So you can put a screwdriver on and shift,

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and then we can take that off.

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So I've done that also.

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So you can take the top cover off,

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and we can throw that away.

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So if you look inside the camera,

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we can right away see this large double A battery.

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Large with respect to the rest of the circuit,

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and you should always keep these even if you're not

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interested in the circuit itself because once the camera's used up,

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and you are about to throw it away or give it away.

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These guys usually still have enough charge in them to be

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useful for something else maybe a remote control for example.

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So don't throw these away or if you do,

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make sure you recycle them.

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So here's a double A battery that powers the flash.

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Here's a flash circuit itself.

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This entire PCB is only responsible for operating the fly circuit.

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At the top, you can see these little metallic pin.

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This metallic piece here is actually the "On" and "Off" button of the flash.

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There's a plastic button on the outside.

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When you press down, everything comes down and

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connects the two paths that are right underneath it,

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and that closes the circuit,

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and turns the flash on.

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On the front side of the camera,

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you can see that big capacitor I was telling you about.

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This capacitor is what holds the charge for the flash.

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There is the flash unit, the flash tube itself at the top,

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and there is a little LED.

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This one's actually equipped with a little LED that shows you,

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tells you when the flash is charged,

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and ready to be fired.

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Interestingly enough, I took apart another identical camera,

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and that one had a neon lamp inside.

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So we'll talk a little bit about that when we analyzing the circuit.

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So let's try, and run this flash once,

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and fire it, and see how it works.

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Again, so we have to be very, very careful here.

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So here's the "On" and "Off" button,

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and there's also two pieces of wire,

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two piece of metal here,

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and these two pieces of metal are the mechanism that fires the flash itself.

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When you push the shutter button, a little lever comes down

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and briefly touches these two pins together,

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and I think that's the lever right here.

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This thing comes down right there,

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and touches those two pins together.

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When that happens, that's when the flash actually is fired.

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So we can charge it,

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and then I will manually do that so we can see the flash go off once.

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So I will push this down and you will hear

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that characteristic noise that you hear when the flash is being charged,

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and we'll talk about why that is later on. So here we go.

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So I can hear it charging.

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So I can see that the LED is turned on meaning that flash is fully charged,

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and ready to be fire.

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So I'm going to let go of the button.

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I'm going to connect those two wires that I told you together a very briefly,

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and we can see the flash go off. There it is.

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So even as the flash went off, the capacitor is not

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fully discharged, so there is enough charge in there to give you a shock.

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You have to be very careful.

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So I'm going to discharge the capacitor first using a metallic piece.

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Take the battery out, and then take the flash circuit out.

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So let us take the battery out first.

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Put that aside, and I can see the two terminals of the big capacitor at the top.

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You can see them right there.

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That's the first terminal, and that's the second one there.

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So I'm going to use a screwdriver,

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and discharge that capacitor before we move forward.

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Okay. I went ahead and discharge the capacitor of the camera.

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I will show you a complete discharge using that method.

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It's just fun to do later on during the video.

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So, you can take a flash circuit out by moving this pin on the side.

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So let me do that, and here we go.

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So the flash circuit comes right out.

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It's one single unit. We don't need this.

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We can throw the rest of this out,

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and let's take a close look at this,

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and see what components are involved in making one of these,

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and then we will analyze a circuit.

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So of course, from the back you can see that flash tube,

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and you can see the two terminals of the battery,

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and the little terminal here that does the firing of the flash itself,

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and in the front we can see that the entire circuit uses only one transistor.

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So there is one transistor.

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There's one diode.

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There's three resistors.

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One little in here.

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I hope you can see this on camera.

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There's one there, and there's one resistor right there.

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There is a big transformer here,

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and a little transformer on this side,

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right here, and there is another capacitor up here, and a big one here.

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This big this is electrolytic capacitor,

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that's capacitor that keeps the charge for the flash,

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and this is an aluminum foil capacitor here that is for a slightly different function,

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so I'll tell you about that later,

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and this transformer has a top connection.

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This top connection from this transformer goes directly to the center top of the flash,

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and these two connectors of the capacitor go to the other two sides of the flash,

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and we will take a look at that, too.

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So, what I've done is that I've taken this,

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and I have drawn a full schematic of it,

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and we would like to find out how this works.

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So there's going to be a little bit of theoretical stuff there,

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and then we will see what we can do with it.