Some years ago I experimented with having a xenon strobe lamp on-board my rocket . The goal was to aid visibility of the rocket on grey, overcast days, when smoke tracking is ineffective. The strobe lamp bulb that I had used (basically, an electronic camera flash) turned out to be too tiny and was not effective in aiding tracking. More recently, I obtained a much larger xenon strobe bulb from Electronic Goldmine (a great place to find inexpensive electronic parts, BTW!). This bulb is 243mm in length and 10mm diameter.

Operates from 300VDC up to 500VDC (cathode to anode voltage) and 4kV trigger voltage. Made from Heimann Borosilicate glass and rated for 1 million flashes.

Problem is, my knowledge of electronics is very rudimentary and I have no clue how to design a circuit to power this rather nice bulb.

Here is my wish-list of design specifications:

Flash rate: between 1hz - 0.25hz
Power supply: lithium battery (either primary or rechargeable) as small as practical and mass < 100 grams.
Operating Duration: 60 seconds minimum, on a full charge
Life expectancy: 2000 seconds minimum

Status: Not yet solved.

Over the latter course of my career, I used Abaqus CAE quite extensively for performing structural analysis. Because I had gotten proficient at modeling parts, I used Abaqus for creating various rocket parts that I saved as STL files. This allowed me to print the parts using my 3D printer. Now that I have retired, I no longer have access to the professional version of Abaqus. However, I have downloaded and installed the Abaqus Learning Edition onto my laptop. The problem is, the STL export plug-in is not installed, and I am not sure how to install it (if it can, in fact, be installed in the Learning Edition). Sure, I can use a different app such as Free-CAD to do modeling and STL creation. But I really do not have the time to learn another application and get proficient at it. I would rather spend my available time doing rocketry work including adding overdue content to my website.

Here are instructions that I found that explains the notion and installation of plug-ins. The content is way over my head.

Abaqus plug-in documentation

Status: Solved. A big thank-you to Colleen Monahan for providing an elegantly simple solution.