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Stroboscope
Martin

Created by

Martin

22. September 2026NO
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Stroboscope

**Warning: flashing light can trigger seizures in people with photosensitive epilepsy. Do not build or watch this if that applies to you or anyone in the room.** Harold Edgerton at MIT, studying electric motors, used a gas-discharge lamp that could flash for a few microseconds, many times a second, in step with a machine. Moving parts appeared frozen, and photographs made by the flash stopped bullets, splashes and hummingbird wings. **US 2,186,013**, "Motion-picture apparatus", Edgerton, filed 10. March 1934, granted 9. January 1940, lights the subject with short, intense, repeated flashes instead of relying on a fast shutter, because "the time of exposure must be short" for rapidly moving objects. **You build an LED stroboscope** with a speed knob, freeze a desk fan, and read its speed from the flash rate.
Intermediate
2 hours

Instructions

1

Wire the strobe

Strip DIN to D6, 5V and GND. Potentiometer ends to 5V and GND, wiper to A0. Install the Adafruit NeoPixel library, upload, open the serial monitor to read the rate.
led_stroboscope.inocpp
// LED stroboscope - batch 99, after US 2,186,013
// WARNING: flashing light can trigger seizures in people with photosensitive epilepsy.
// NeoPixel strip DIN -> D6 (5V, GND). Potentiometer wiper -> A0 sets the flash rate.
#include <Adafruit_NeoPixel.h>

const int PIN = 6, COUNT = 8;
const unsigned int FLASH_US = 300;          // flash length: shorter = sharper, dimmer
Adafruit_NeoPixel strip(COUNT, PIN, NEO_GRB + NEO_KHZ800);
const uint32_t WHITE = Adafruit_NeoPixel::Color(255, 255, 255);

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(115200);
  strip.begin();
  strip.setBrightness(255);
  strip.clear(); strip.show();
}

void loop() {
  // 5 to 105 flashes per second from the knob
  float hz = 5.0 + analogRead(A0) * 100.0 / 1023.0;
  unsigned long period = (unsigned long)(1e6 / hz);
  unsigned long t0 = micros();
  strip.fill(WHITE); strip.show();
  delayMicroseconds(FLASH_US);
  strip.clear(); strip.show();
  static unsigned long lastPrint = 0;
  if (millis() - lastPrint > 500) { lastPrint = millis(); Serial.print(hz, 2); Serial.println(F(" Hz")); }
  while (micros() - t0 < period) {}
}

Materials for this step:

Neopixel LED StripNeopixel LED Strip1 piece
Rotary Potentiometer - 4.7k Ohm, LinearRotary Potentiometer - 4.7k Ohm, Linear1 piece
Dupont Jumper Wire Set (M-F)Dupont Jumper Wire Set (M-F)1 set

Tools needed:

Arduino Uno R3Arduino Uno R3
Breadboard - ClassicBreadboard - Classic
SparkFun Cerberus USB Cable - 1.8 meterSparkFun Cerberus USB Cable - 1.8 meter
2

Mark a blade

Put a strip of masking tape on ONE fan blade near its tip, guard on. Darken the room and aim the strip at the fan.

Materials for this step:

Masking TapeMasking Tape1 roll

Tools needed:

Electric Desk FanElectric Desk Fan
3

Find the freezes

Run the fan on one setting. Turn the knob slowly from high to low and note every rate where the TAPED blade stands still as a single image. Just above the highest one it appears doubled or drifting.
4

Rates to rpm

Loading Jupyter Notebook...
5

History & Context

**What the patent specifies:** a subject lit by short, intense, repeated flashes timed to the film, instead of continuous light and a fast shutter. **Modern build (derived):** an Arduino flashing an LED strip. Edgerton's flash tubes became the electronic flash in every camera, and stroboscopes became workshop tools for checking engine timing and machine speed. Their limits: aliasing (a wheel frozen at a wrong speed), dim light from very short flashes, and the seizure risk of flicker.
Step 5 - Image 1

Materials

4

Tools Required

4
Estimated Total
What the maker bought. Materials shown without a price are sourced wherever you buy them.
$1.20

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