I would like to use an LED lamp with my high-speed camera because it is used around very flammable material and I’m concerned about the heat from the halogen lamp I use now. I tried using multiple LED flashlights as a test and had no problem getting a good image but couldn’t see as far into the machine as I can with the halogen lamp.
Does anyone have any experience with products such as these, particularly with industrial applications such as troubleshooting machinery?
I bought a pair of LED light bulb replacements at Sam’s club a while back, and they are (IIRC) 40W replacements. I was actually very impressed at the amount of light they produce, most of which is in one direction.
My gut instinct is that these would be fine for close up photography.
I don’t have the details on the lumens or whatever, but at $13 a pair, it is a low cost easy thing to try.
Aren’t LED lamps strobed? The Christmas tree lights I bought this year have a flickery appearance when you move them past your eyes. Might this be a problem with high speed photography?
There is no requirement that LEDs be strobed. Christmas lights are because they are running off of unfiltered rectified AC- the cheapest way to power them.
beowulff already answered the question well but FWIW I have tried using lights that flicker not on purpose but because I lost filaments in both my halogen lamps and decided to use some incandescent trouble lamps for some imaging we needed. They worked well enough in a pinch but there was a lot of flickering and we could only capture images up close. Sometimes the closest we can safely mount the camera is five or six feet away and my main concern with LEDs is that I won’t be able to get good illumination from that far away but I say that having only tried some jerry-rigged set-ups.
Maybe I’ll have to use halogen for longer distances and will be able to use LED for closer shots which realistically will be the bulk of the imaging.
Very flammable materials and high speed photography? Whatever it is that you are doing must be very interesting 
Haha, I wish. The flammable materials are things like oil and dust, nothing exciting but they will burn (and spread). The high speed imaging is kind of cool but I really don’t know much about it yet. There’s no tutorial or help files with the software so it’s learn as I go. I have decided I don’t want to burn anything down though because I was sitting there trying to figure it out and not noticing the halogen lamp igniting something in the meantime.