110AC Strobes off a Car?

[Nathan Potter]

Frank, it seems to me that a 12 volt inverter that produces a relatively clean sine wave should work fine. These are periodically available on ebay. Don't know what power you need though.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

[Mike Fiction]

You can use this:
http://www.samlexamerica.com/product...roductsID=7013

Make sure your car socket is actually 12v - not all cigarette lighter plugs are full power.

This is the same unit used in the original Vagabond from Paul C Buff (White Lightning/Alien Bees)

Here's a store that sells it: http://store.altenergystore.com/Inve...nverter/p1043/

Here's a link to a DIY battery power pack for strobes using this inverter: http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/re...ssage=21173329

[Struan Gray]

Budget solution: I know a couple of people who use a computer UPS to run strobes. Bought used on eBay or Craigslist you can get a fair bit of clean battery power for very little money. Usually one or two 200-400 Ws monolight heads can be driven by a 6-8 kg portable unit. The bigger 12-14 kg models have more oomph, but get hard to carry about. Older or cheaper analogue strobes seem to work best, as they just plod along at whatever current the UPS can supply. Digital strobes (even the entry-level Elinchrom D-lites) can end up re-setting themselves to their startup configuration after each pop because of the voltage drop that accompanies the large initial charging current.

The UPS in turn can be run off a cheap inverter from your car battery - and some can be recharged directly from a 12v supply.

[z_photo]

See what Paul Buff has to say about the Alien Bees Vagabond II portable power thingy.

anybody run profoto compact monolights off a vagabond II? at least Buff advertises the vag II as pure sine wave power so i assume it should be acceptable. given the prices of profoto gear if it is not a workable power source the results would be expensive.

[Frank Petronio]

I love the UPS idea, I only have 5-6 of them here...

[Mike Fiction]

I love the UPS idea, I only have 5-6 of them here...

Just make sure they put out a pure sine wave - otherwise they could blow up your strobes.

[Frank Petronio]

I'm going to go blow up a $75 Dynalite 804 first ;-0

[Struan Gray]

I would guess that if a UPS doesn't upset a computer it's not going to bother a flash much either. The slightly off the bottom feeder models that advertise their power conditioning capabilities might be a little less risky.

There was quite a long discussion on the Swedish photo site fotosidan.se about doing just this. All failures were of the 'didn't work' or 'not enough power' type. Nobody reported damaging their strobes.

Frank, since you don't even need to buy a UPS on spec, I'd say give it a go. Start with a big UPS and with the strobe dialled down and get progressively braver from there ... :-)


Example thread (in Swedish, but with a nice pic at the start) here: http://www.fotosidan.se/forum/showth...threadid=71403

[Frank Petronio]

Yeah I have a couple of 40-pounders, I don't understand watts and volts, just weight.

Hmm it's raining outside. Think I'll go out and try. Should I be barefoot or wear flip-flops?

[Struan Gray]

Surely you have some spare latex bootees lying about. They insulate quite well.