HiViz sound trigger..... a review.

[Stradawhovious]

Part one.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with what this is, the HiViz sound trigger is a tool used in High Speed photography.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with high speed photography, here is a link to some pictures.... Image Search Results for high speed photography

Now on with the show.

I came home from work yesterday to find a box addressed to me on my door step from HiViz, which is a good thing because I have been impatiently waiting for this thing for THREE WHOLE DAYS.

Anxious to get the unit out, plug it in and get to snapping pictures, I not-so-carefully opened the box, and made it rain packing peanuts until I discovered the box of goodies near the bottom. I pulled it out, and found that the "some assembly required" actually meant "ALL assembly required". Seriously, it was a plastic enclosure with no holes in it for the controls, a bunch of electronic parts, a stripped circuit board and a handfull of wires. The buyer is required to be knowledgable with soldering electronics, and be handy with a drill .

Luckily I am both.

Another thing I noticed straight away is that there was no instruction manual on how to assemble this beast. I was able to locate one on the HiViz website, and was off to the races.

The Web instructions were very easy to understand and thorough. I got to wiring up the first resistor, and it went off without a hitch. Put the wires through the board, bent them over, soldered them in place and smipped the excess. No problem....... ont to resistor 2. The next resistor to be wired in was a 10ohm resistor. I couldn't find it...... turns out they gave me three 1 ohm resistors instead of two 1 ohm and 1 10 ohm.

Off to Radio shack.

[mid project rant]
Needless to say, I'm a little put out at this point. Not only can I not take it out of the box and play with it, I have to assemble the whole damn thing, wiring and all. Not only do I have to assemble it, but they don't give me the right parts.
[/mid project rant]

Once back from Radio Shack, correct part in tow, I got back to work. After a few hours of drilling, soldering, crying and swearing..... not to mention the Pizza break, I was finally finished. I put the box together, inserted a battery and flipped the switch.

Wonder of wonders, and miracle of miracles the light came on. I plugged in the included microphone (some assembly required of course), plugged in my radio trigger, clapped my hands together and the flash fired.

Honestly I was really surprised. I half expected that after all the trouble I had before hand, I would clap my hands, the unit would burst into flames taking the greater Minneapolis area with it.

I turned it off, put it down, went for a potty break and came back. Turned the unit back on and the LED wouldn't light up.

Surprise.

I plugged everything back in, and the unit still works, but the LED doesn't. I checked all the connections, everything is solid.... I must have fried it [the LED] soldering it in. [Sigh] C'est la vie.

A few things I have noticed about this unit;

- It is build really solidly. I feel that with teh plastic enclosure, if the builder does their part, it will last a lifetime.
- The sensitivity is not very sensitive. The unit goes from "nothing can set me off" to "a dog must have barked three blocks over" in 1/8 of a turn of the dial.
- It is a pain in the ass to build.

All in all, for a $40 bill I'm pretty happy with it, and cannot wait to put it through it's paces.

Coming soon..... Part Deux..... The taking of the high speed pictures...

(probably later tonight.)

 

[zamanakhan]

Sounds awsome, I would love to see the pictures. $40 also sounds like a steal I may look into one myself.

 

[Stradawhovious]

Part 2 here....

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/...is-sound-trigger-c-c-welcome.html#post2618186

 

[Garbz]

I hope you mean 3 1kohm instead of 3 1ohm

Probably not what you want to hear but the circuit would have worked just fine with a 1kohm resistor on the output too. It looks like C6 forms a low pass filter to prevent noise or ultrasonics from setting the thing off. Actually it looks like it would probably work even better with just a wire in place of that 10ohm.

Also how can you be angry at having to assemble something you bought as a kit

If you find yourself having a bit of difficulty finding a good setpoint for the circuit you can add a second potentiometer with 1/10th of the value in between the potentiometer and the capacitor leading to the microphone. Connect the wiper to one of the ends. This trick is used a lot in function generators where there is a "Course" and a "Fine" control.

 

[jmark58]

i like the hi speed photos and may have to invest in this trigger because it really intrigues me. i have a few questions - did you shoot the eggs with a gun of some sort? if so, what keeps the sound trigger from firing when you first shoot as opposed to when the egg gets hit?

 

[Josh66]

I think I'll order one of these soon.

 

[Infidel]

i like the hi speed photos and may have to invest in this trigger because it really intrigues me. i have a few questions - did you shoot the eggs with a gun of some sort? if so, what keeps the sound trigger from firing when you first shoot as opposed to when the egg gets hit?

Microphone placement.

 

[Stradawhovious]

I hope you mean 3 1kohm instead of 3 1ohm

Probably not what you want to hear but the circuit would have worked just fine with a 1kohm resistor on the output too. It looks like C6 forms a low pass filter to prevent noise or ultrasonics from setting the thing off. Actually it looks like it would probably work even better with just a wire in place of that 10ohm.

Also how can you be angry at having to assemble something you bought as a kit

If you find yourself having a bit of difficulty finding a good setpoint for the circuit you can add a second potentiometer with 1/10th of the value in between the potentiometer and the capacitor leading to the microphone. Connect the wiper to one of the ends. This trick is used a lot in function generators where there is a "Course" and a "Fine" control.

You post this as if I have ANY idea what I'm talking about. Yeah, it was probably 1k ohm, and I'm sure you could just use a jumper rather than the other resistor, but what i know about this kind of stuff couldn't fill a thimble.

As far as complaining about putting it together... I assumed there would be some assembly required, but they could have just as easiely given me a gift certificate to Radio Shack and said "Have at it!". I thought at the least the board would be wired. Good advice in your post, and I thank you for it. If I find myself needing more control, I will absolutely take your advice on installing the additional potentiometer.

i like the hi speed photos and may have to invest in this trigger because it really intrigues me. i have a few questions - did you shoot the eggs with a gun of some sort? if so, what keeps the sound trigger from firing when you first shoot as opposed to when the egg gets hit?

Microphone placement.

Yeah, the microphonecan be set for sensetivity meaning it will take a certain volume of noise to trigger the flash. For timing.... (egg bursting rather than the shot fired) the distance of the microphone from the noise is what controlls that. You really do have a lot of control over when the exposure happens, but there is a bit of trial and error to get there.

 

[Garbz]

Sorry didn't realise that would mostly go over your head. If you do want the additional control let me know and I'll give you careful wiring instructions