I haven't yet finished building this device but my contact in Houston Texas assures me it will work
The details sent me are thus:
Try this...get one of those cheap one shot use disposable cameras, tear it apart, carefully...find the wires that go to the shutter switch and short then out, connect them together so that they are constantly 'on'
(** the one I tried a Kodak Fun Flash came apart quite easily it does not need a lot of force ** )
Then take out the batteries....put a long rod into the ground...8 or 9 feet long...then connect that copper rod to the (-) negative side of where the batteries hooked up to the camera's strobe...
Make a piece of metal, alumimun foil, large and as long as you can, 3 feet long at least,
attach it to a wooden pole, just don't let it get grounded okay...then attach (+) lead that went to the batteries to it.
(webmaster note ** A high single length of wire aerial may also serve the same purpose as the al foil , it may be also wise to use something other than wood as your support as this will become conductive to the ground when the wood becomes wet,use maybe plastic or rubber spacers to attach the foil to mast ** )
Put the camera's strobe unit into something that will water proof it out side {** maybe silicon or a clear plastic jar or box..**..}.
It will take about a day for it to charge up and maybe the second day you will get a couple of flashes from it...during a storm, it will flash more often...dont just sit around and wait for it to flash...
Just do what ever you normally do...sooner or later you will see it flash...getting power from the air and earth charging the capacitor and then firing the camera flash strobe
Water the copper ground rod after you put it into the ground. This demonstration unit should cost you next to nothing to build. ( **. The Kodak disposable camera in Australia cost $27.00 the rest can be anything you have lying around.**)
( webmasters note ** It occurs to me that if you that if you don't solder the flash shutter but only solder the trigger contacts it may be possible to fire your unit to flash at your time of choosing , after the large capacitor has received enough charge ** )
** Please note anything between the asterisks are my comments and are not part of the construction details received by me.from my contact
By the way the capacitor when charged has a nasty shock in store for anybody not handling it carefully **)
