A while back my dad got interested in a nifty little lightning shutter trigger circuit designed by Viktor Takacs. He bought one, and sent it off to me, along with a cheap remote shutter trigger (To canabalise the cable) to finish off for him.
I finally got around to completing it the other day, after a quick trip to Jaycar to get a few bits and bobs. What I needed was as follows:
1 X 3.5mm stereo jack socket
1 X 3.5mm stereo jack plug
1 X potentiometer knob
1 X HB5610 plastic enclosure with battery compartment
I made the holes for the LEDs, push-button switch, potentiometer, power switch and sensor in the appropriate places, and epoxied in some stand-offs so that the board sat at the correct height. I had to desolder the opto sensor and solder in a socket, and then soldered pcb header pins to the opto sensor so that it would site at the correct height, and assembled it all. I cut the cable off the remote trigger, and soldered the 3.5mm jack plug on, using the Canon standard (My dads camera is an Olympus, so the camera side is some form of USB plug), as the Canon standard seems to be pretty much the defacto standard used by all manufacturers who use jack plugs for remote triggers.
Here are the results:
Now all dad needs is a few thunderstorms!