A. Kenneth Olsen was an electronic engineer from Minnesota who produced high speed flash units on a custom basis from the 1970’s to the early 90’s. He was tragically killed in a car accident in 1993, I believe. He produced two lines of units, a standard and ‘ultra’ version. The standard unit had a flash duration of around 1/18,000th at full power and 1/25,000th at half power. The Ultra had specs of 1/25,000th and 1/35,000th at full and half power, respectively.
These units are tried and trusted, and still in use today, though getting parts and repairs for them is tough. For folks who may find a system – have fun, but be very, very careful with them. While Ken was a proficient electronic engineer, his disregard for safe engineering practices has had me aghast since I first saw one of his units about 10 or 12 years ago. The Ultra unit operates at about 3500 volts (3.5kV) and the standard unit at about 1200V (1.2kV). Yet he attached the power supply to the flash heads with standard mains flex (rated at 325V and 10amps), attached to low power audio connectors from the 60’s for the Ultras, and DIN plugs for the standard unit. The high voltages exist less than 1/8” inside the rear panel connectors, and how someone has not been injured can be regarded as miraculous. Still, his equipment has produced some of the finest high speed flash images ever.
It should be noted that A. Kenneth Olsen is NOT the Ken Olsen of Digital Equipment Corp. fame.
