Portable power supply...

[Jehu]

How feasible is this...

Connect a deep cycle marine or car battery to an uninterruptable power supply as a portable power supply for my studio lights.

How much current do 300ws mono-heads need? Deep cycle batteries typically provide over 500 amps for short bursts. At 12 volts that amounts to 6,000 watts. That should be enough to run at least two or three monoheads for as long as the battery lasts.

Any comments?

[Greg Lockrey]

Are these 120v lamps? if so, you will need about 3 amps per light and your power supply configuration will give you 5 amps @ 120v disregarding line loses. It would be better to buy a 5 kw gas generator from Sears for the money. Most deep cycle batteries are 60 amp hour btw. and they won't last all that long when hit at bursts of full power either.

[resummerfield]

Paul Buff sells a self contained power supply for his Monolights, called the Vagabond (http://www.white-lightning.com/battery.html). It seems to get pretty good reviews. You could also make your own power supply, using the deep cycle batteries and an inverter, but the Vagabond looks like a pretty nice unit for one or two Monolights.

[Robert Oliver]

Dynalite makes a sine wave inverter that runs off of a car battery...

spendy but nice.

I used to just rent the pro-foto kits or carry a generator

[CatSplat]

I'd personally just spend the $300 on a Vagabond II instead of rigging up a car battery.

[Gene McCluney]

How feasible is this...

Connect a deep cycle marine or car battery to an uninterruptable power supply as a portable power supply for my studio lights.

How much current do 300ws mono-heads need? Deep cycle batteries typically provide over 500 amps for short bursts. At 12 volts that amounts to 6,000 watts. That should be enough to run at least two or three monoheads for as long as the battery lasts.

Any comments?

I think what you need is called an "Inverter" and they make them in various wattages at various price points. They are not very expensive. I got a 200 watt one for less than $40. It takes 12 volts in, and outputs 200 watts at 120volts.

You could also get a portable generator. A 6000 watt generator at big box hardware stores is in the $500 range, and you can use it at home when your power fails also.

[D. Bryant]

How feasible is this...

Connect a deep cycle marine or car battery to an uninterruptable power supply as a portable power supply for my studio lights.

How much current do 300ws mono-heads need? Deep cycle batteries typically provide over 500 amps for short bursts. At 12 volts that amounts to 6,000 watts. That should be enough to run at least two or three monoheads for as long as the battery lasts.

Any comments?

There are DIY battery/inverter to AC articles around on the internet if you feel handy. The inverter HAS to be a pure sine waxe inverter, so keep that in mind.

Heavy stuff to haul around but essential if you need one for location shooting. Besides the AB Vagabond you might consider the Tronix Explorer XT or it's bigger brother the Tronix Explorer 1200W

Here are some links to check out:

http://www.studiolighting.net/roduct-review-innovatronix-tronix-explorer-xt/

http://www.studiolighting.net/tronix-explorer-xt-mobile-power-pack-doubles-the-wattage/

http://www.innovatronix.com/explorerXT.asp


Note that these units get mixed reviews, some state that the recycle time is very slow.

Anoter good option is the Dyanlite XP 1100, supposedly a true 1100 Joule battery pack.

http://www.dynalite.com/battery_power.shtml

But as the product link states it's only good for about 200 flashes at 1000 J - w/s. Since you are using a single 300 w/s head you can expect more.

Hensel also makes a power pack, be prepared to pay top dollar for the Dyanlite and Hensel units

Hope this helps,

Don Bryant

[Wally]

There are DIY battery/inverter to AC articles around on the internet if you feel handy. The inverter HAS to be a pure sine waxe inverter, so keep that in mind.


Don,

Where's the sine wave requirement come from? It seems to me that a square wave inverter would be satisfactory (and of course so much more efficient).

[Jehu]

This is pretty close to what I had in mind:
http://blogs.adamparkerphotography.com/blog/DIY-Portable-Monolight-Flash-Battery-and-Carrying-Bag/42/

He just used the 12 volt battery that's in the UPS. I was considering a marine deep cycle battery.

I know this is very doable by throwing $$$$ at it.

[jp]

The sinewave versus other waveform depends on the power supply of the lights or other equipment you are running. If it has a switching power supply, it will run on pretty much anything. If it's got a transformer power supply it might be better to have sinewave.

Tripplite makes some nice heavy duty inverters in their APS series which we use with deep cycle batteries to run computer and networking equipment for 8-24 hours instead of using UPSs.

[Phil O.]

My own experience with using a monolight setup off the beaten path has been with a Paul Buff Ultra 1200 monolight, 400watt Power Star inverter (true sine-wave) and a gel cell battery - the size of a very small car battery. The gel cell was used to avoid the leaking of battery acid. And a cigarette lighter-type male/female connector was used to join the battery and inverter together.

I hiked upwards of a half mile from my vehicle with most of the setup stowed in a backpack, with the gel cell in the bottom of the pack in the lower compartment on a piece of fitted plywood. A light stand and medium Multidome softbox were part of the kit. And I was shooting 6X7cm format while doing that. I had a 4X5 outfit at the time that could have been used, but didn't want to deal with the extra effort to lug everything around in the woods.

[tpsfoto]

In order for the flash to be consistant ....voltage & amps have to be consistant....you need a sine wave converter......a really good inexpensive one is the Tronix Explorer....I own it & use it all the time......

here is a link to describe it.

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/content_page.asp?cid=7-7883-7908

[Hollis]

Go with something pre-made. You will end up paying a bit more but you won't look like a douche when your homemade kit explodes, shocks the art director or straight up doesn't work. I like the alien bee's vagabond as they are cheap and not too unsightly. The tronix looks pretty good and I could see how that would be even better on set. Dynalite's jackrabbit pack works but is damn expensive. Profoto 7b's are the best but, damn expensive. Hensel's look good and work great and that wooden carrying handle is 'neat' but they are, you guessed, damn expensive.