MrBiteMe4 Posted December 3, 2009 Share Posted December 3, 2009 This morning (in South Florida) I was sitting on the porch drinking coffee at about 5am. There was a cool front coming in and I noticed an occasional flash, but no thunder. When I walked down the driveway and looked back for lightning I noticed a strobe fired off. A short while later it did it again. I have about 20 strobes around the yard, but the same one fired about 3 more times, none of the others did. They are all on the same channel. Is this caused by static electricity? There was a storm approaching.:shock: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Posted December 3, 2009 Share Posted December 3, 2009 I think it's possible for a nearby thunderstorm to set off xenon strobe lights. Depending on the length of the extension cord and how high it is above the ground it can act as an antenna and pickup stray magnetic fields given off by nearby lightning strokes with enough energy to fire the xenon tube.When I used a long piece of copper wire as a shortwave receiving antenna, I used an automobile spark plug connected to the wire and the body of the plug grounded to prevent static buildup. When a thunderstorm was near, you could see the spark plug arc from the static buildup on the wire. It would also spark in blowing dry snow so there is quite a bit of energy emitted even in a nearby lightning stroke. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-klb- Posted December 3, 2009 Share Posted December 3, 2009 Several possibilities come to mind.. It may have been charged well enough that the field from the strike either directly caused the xenon to cascade, or induced enough current in the trigger coil to create the voltage needed to cascade the xenon. If some aspect of the tube is causing the discharge to stop early, it might retrigger more than once on the same charge... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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