Yet another fantastic Chinese industrial component. These beacons are often attached to factory machines to get attention when something goes wrong. Traditionally they would have either had xenon strobes or tungsten lamps in them, but the use of LEDs provides good sharp pulses of colourful light with low power draw.
This unit contains 15 LEDs, and it's clear from the design of the PCB that one module is designed to be used with all colours of LEDs, and also work at 12, 24 and 48V by the simple use of an internal resistor for the higher voltages.
The circuitry is super simple. It's just a traditional two transistor flip-flop circuit with the LEDs driven on one side and the two timing resistors chosen to provide brief flashes. It appears they may be going for a one in ten duty cycle and driving the LEDs quite hard at over 100mA for maximum intensity while remaining within their normal dissipation range.
There is an attempt to make the module waterproof via a large o-ring seal on the screw-on cover and fairly rigid sealing compound where the wires enter the unit. It comes with a wall/panel mounting twist-on base, but can also be mounted directly to a panel with two supplied machine screws going into threaded metal inserts in the strobe.
These units are available in red, amber, blue and white as standard, and cost a staggeringly low amount for what seems to be a very robust industrial component.
The ebay listing I bought this from was:-
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/281852017608
But there are a LOT of listings for these units.

13 thoughts on “Teardown and schematic of led strobe beacon.”
  1. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars KING says:

    u went deep into this a lil too deep

  2. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Ray Firth says:

    Dont like that ,its poor at the side of the proper xenon ones.used to use loads of these and with a unit called a sound bomb when these went of in a building you had to leave they really thumped your ears,bought one just recently and now they are rubbish too guess its called advancement.

  3. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Kim Sleep says:

    The very first circuit I built when I was 6 or so, except I used small DC bulbs instead of LEDS (I dont think LEDs were invented then)

  4. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Kim Sleep says:

    VERY pityful strobe unit

  5. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Peter Edin says:

    I thought of making this circuit. Looking at other similar circuits, I take it those transistors could be general purpose BC547s and the electolytics could be rated at 16V?

  6. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars renton9999 says:

    so basically someone could modify on of these by changing two resistors out if they wanted to change the delays.

    very nice

  7. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Jamie Clarke says:

    gone back to the ipad dont like it go back to other cam i cant see all your cuts on your hands in gory details

  8. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Jason S says:

    Good video. I prefer the traditional Xenon strobe lamps any day. These LED ones are rubbish. Someone should come up with a high-powered LED version that can be visible from the sides as well.

  9. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Micah Nightwolf says:

    "It's quite an orange-y color" lol with that orange lens on it you'd expect it to be orange-y colored XD

  10. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars sounduser says:

    are we going to get a pinball video??

  11. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars whp61 says:

    Another good video. Nice little product but it doesn't look a patch on the traditional xenon strobe. More like a damp suib version.

  12. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars mango3586 says:

    HI thank you for interesting video I thing I will be making one of these what type of transistors  do I need and are the led's 5 mm type.

  13. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Shmeh Fleh says:

    "It's on!"
    "It's off!"
    "It's on!"
    "It's off!"
    "It's on!"
    "It's off!"
    "That's called 'blinking', boys."

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