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Xenon Flashes Can Make New Raspberry Pi 2 Freeze and Reboot

Posted by timothy on from the camera-shy dept.

An anonymous reader writes Unfortunately for Raspberry Pi 2 owners who are trying to photograph their devices, ... the Raspberry Pi 2 has been found to be Xenon flash sensitive. Any camera with a Xenon flash aimed at the device is causing the device to freeze for a few seconds before rebooting. The forum thread about the bug is an interesting play-by-play of how the problem was narrowed down.

5 of 192 comments (clear)

  1. Not Photosensitive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    It seems the Pi2 is not photosensitive, but x-ray sensitive, or sensitive to electric fields, the xenon flash is a high voltage discharge that both generates some high energy photons and sends a electromagnetic pulse through the ether. Early radios where spark gaps. If light can not penetrate (inside the voltage regulator) it can't affect the component.

  2. The new power supplies may be sensitve to EMP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Years ago when I visited an aquarium I encountered a very strange situation

    I was in front of a tank which has 3 electric eels, and in front of the tank there was a 'meter' measuring the power the electric eels were discharging

    So I took out my camera (real camera, with powerful Xenon flash light module attached)

    Before I pressed the button the Xenon flash was charging (as I said, powerful flash light) and all of a sudden the 'electric meter' in front of the tank indicated that there was an electric discharge from the electric eels

    At first I thought it was a coincidence. Then I wanted to take another picture. Again, my Xenon flash light module was charging, and again, there was a jump in the 'electric meter' reading. This second time around I started to suspect that there was a connection in between my Xenon flash light module and the electric eels

    The third time around I only use the Xenon flash module. Again I hold it close to the tank, and charge it, and again, the 'electric meter' got another 'shock'. I repeated the experiment the fourth time, fifth time, .... every single time while my Xenon flash module was charging up,. the electric eels inside the tank somehow 'felt' something and gave an electric discharge

    I never know the exact reason. My suspicion is that there might be some EMP effect, some wave or some magnetic field, or something like that

    What I described happened years ago. I never get the chance to test out my theory

    Perhaps someone can test if Xenon flash emits EMP, or not

    1. Re:The new power supplies may be sensitve to EMP by Enry · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Back in the earliyish days of cell phones (1994ish) I had a cell phone that would cause my computer speakers to power off about a half second before the phone would ring.

    2. Re:The new power supplies may be sensitve to EMP by An+dochasac · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Put your electronic flash next to an AM radio (you might find one in an antique shop ;-) You'll find considerable EMF comes from the electronic flash circuit as it charges the big capacitor. For fun we used to heterodyne this against the EMF from an LED pocket calculator for some very bizarre spacy effects.

  3. Similarly .... by ankhank · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "Nothing like this will be built again"

    I've just had a really amazing experience: a guided tour of the nuclear reactor complex at Torness on the Scottish coast. ... Cameras were verboten -- not because of security, but as an operational precaution. For starters, some embedded controllers in racks in the auxilliary deisel generator control rooms have EPROMs which have been known to be erased by camera flashes in the past, triggering a generator trip ...."

    http://www.antipope.org/charli...