Wanted Strobe power supply repair

[894]

Looking for someone who has the capability to repair a strobe power supply. It is brand new and flashes 3 or 4 times and stops. Capacitors? Regardless, the power supply is not potted and should be easily repaired due to it's condition and board accessibility, The unit is NOS and a shame to toss but inoperable, currently. Any leads? Thanks in advance!

 

[Stampeed Valkyrie]

My first guess would be a faulty capacitor(s) you could always remove and test each of them with a meter. I don't see any obvious signs of board damage, might want to remove it and look underneath for signs of damage or corrosion.

 

[RS485]

I'm not familiar with how FEDSIG power supplies work but idle capacitors can degrade over time.
You can google "capacitor reforming" to learn more.

It could be that if the caps are in a degraded state, that FEDSIG designed in some protection strategy to self-turn off when it recognizes the caps not performing as expected.

If this is true, then I'd expect if you keep doing what you're doing (apply power, watch it flash a few times, remove power, wait a few second, repeat), that you'd start to see more flashes before it stops working. This would suggest you're succeeding in reforming the caps.

One thing to keep an eye on is the temperature of the caps. If they get too warm too quickly, that's bad. Let them cool down then re-start the process.

Again, I'm not familiar with FEDSIG stuff but I would expect to see some improvement in just a few minutes.

Off course, be very careful around the power supply -- it is a high-voltage device.

 

[JohnMarcson]

I'm not familiar with how FEDSIG power supplies work but idle capacitors can degrade over time.
You can google "capacitor reforming" to learn more.

It could be that if the caps are in a degraded state, that FEDSIG designed in some protection strategy to self-turn off when it recognizes the caps not performing as expected.

If this is true, then I'd expect if you keep doing what you're doing (apply power, watch it flash a few times, remove power, wait a few second, repeat), that you'd start to see more flashes before it stops working. This would suggest you're succeeding in reforming the caps.

One thing to keep an eye on is the temperature of the caps. If they get too warm too quickly, that's bad. Let them cool down then re-start the process.

Again, I'm not familiar with FEDSIG stuff but I would expect to see some improvement in just a few minutes.

Off course, be very careful around the power supply -- it is a high-voltage device.

I bought a huge pile of pre-target tech (Warn-a-lite), target tech, and then federal brand strobes a while back. They are an interesting design that didn't change a lot until they radically changed. The two DOA ones I had were as follows:

Wrong bulb (looks like a standard bulb but different pinout), bad capacitors, and bad solder joints in 3 places. I start by metering at the 12v input. Then I trace until I hit "non-12 v parts". Then I fire it up and check for high voltage at the capacitors and in the pins of the bulb socket. That part can be a bit dodgy if you don't know what you are doing. Depending on whether it is charging and not firing, attempting to fire but not (little clicks no flash), or doing nothing then I go from there.

In your case flashing then stopping could be few things. The capacitors may lack the resilience to recharge. The multiple capacitor design may suggest that one is bad and not others. The bulb may be going bad and the light is trying to protect itself. This is newer than mine, but the same ideas apply. I'd be checking capacitor voltage when it stops and look for attempts to trigger after it stops.