12v battery converter-inverter

hi,

can anyone use a 12v battery converter with studio strobes on

location? we need powerful lighting in a future shooting, and

there?s no chance to plug anything. I?m wondering if anyone use

these inverters and how much will be the 12vbattery useful?

It seems the only way we can use our strobes (well, we don?t have

3000 $ to waste on powerpacks and lamps), so, studio strobes on

location, any help???

one more, i saw this units can handle 2000w power, that?s ok, but

what?s about ampers, will them (inverters) be useful??

I never used such a unit, but according to my calculations it seems to drain a car battery within a few minutes - same powerconsumption as cranking your engine.

There are some older postings about using generators on this forum. They are really worth reading.

I'd suggest you should ask the manufacturer of your gear what you'll need in the field and forget about using a bunch of 300-650W pilot lights as soon as possible.

You need a generator. How big depends on how many strobes you have, but a car battery isn't going to cut it. Not even close.

another issue is the sin/square wave of the output. most of these 12V to 120V inverters will fry your powerpack/ capacitors for they are not the right wave.

 

You are better off to rent balcar, profoto or hansel battery powered pack for locations or gasoline powered generators.

 

Dynalite makes a battery powered inverter for location use with powerpacks, the big rental shops should have it.

Depending of the inverter type, it will draw between 200 and more than 300 Amperes. Even a big 200 A/H battery will be discharged within minutes. Even if you connect 10 of these batteries in parrallel, it's the inverter that will overheat. That's for continious use. Now if your strobes are used only like 1/3 of the time ON, 2/3 of the time OFF, and the battery is connected to the charging system of a big truck (with 100+ Amperes alternator), with a good quality inverter, it will work, but it's the alternator that risk to overheat. Long before inverter was available on the market, I installed a self made inverter (1000 Watts) in my very small car (35 A/H battery) to power a vacuum or a hair dryer. It worked for several minutes each day until the alternator died! But with the charging system of a big truck and intermitent use, it may be possible to power your strobe. Another problem: Inverters are not reliable!

See this post for more info:

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0084Xk

 

Anyhow, for my system I've ended up spending a little bit less than what it would have cost to buy the Profoto 7B system with one head. Of course, my system weighs a lot more, and is bigger in size as well.

 

You can buy the Dyna-Lite XL1100 to power a single pack around 1000-1200ws, so maybe this would be an alternative for you.

 

My system works fine for powering two Profoto Acute2 2400ws packs with modeling lights OFF, or one pack with modelling light ON dim setting. I can't tell you how long it will run for, but easily 100 full-power pops with single pack and single head and modeling light OFF.

 

I'm planning on adding another Optima Blue-Top battery to the system. Just for info, my inverter weighs 32 lbs, the single battery weighs 59lbs, so you can see that with two batteries and the inverter the weight is most prohibitive.

 

Anyhow, I wanted a system I could use for other things when I'm not using it out on location, hence this path.

 

If you want a light weight system, then the Profoto 7B or Helsel Porty or Elinchrome Ranger? or the Dyna-Lite XL1100 would better choices.

 

BR

thanks to all people.

my problem is about money, i cant spend 2 or 3000 bucks on powerpacks or any dynalite generator, so i saw these inverters for just 150 euros, so i think, that plus a battery will work, well you can see that eletronics stuff is my strong side, but i remember a lighting book made from Broncolor people that said you can use car batteries and converters for studio strobes, well no modeling light but a hundred of pops (that?s what i want, i dont need any modeling light). I try to find some information on that broncolor converter but any source found, but i?m wondering if that broncolor stuff will be the same that inverters with sine wave.

If i understand right i can use these inverters if they have sine wave isnt it??

for example an elinchrom 500 (that use 800W) will work with an inverter prepared for 1000w with pure sine wave, just for pops, no modeling light?, how long an hour? if they use car batteries they can be charge isn?t?

excuse me, but first i?m spanish so my english it?s bad and second electronics stuff isn?t my strong side.

thank you very much

<P>What you're about to undertake is not trivial. If you plan to be doing this sort of thing on a regular basis, investing in proper battery powered strobes is a very good idea. Here's a few things you need to think about:

 

<UL>

<LI>Inverter capacity. You're going to need an inverter rated for intermittant duty at your strobe's peak draw (probably during the capacitor flash recharge) as well as continuous duty for any constant draw like modeling lights. Note that modeling lights are really going to soak up a bunch of inverter capacity and put some serious strain battery budget, so if you can do without it would be for the best. For every 100 watts of power you draw at 120V, that's 10A of draw at 12V.

<LI>Inverter power quality. Cheaper inverters produce a square or stepped wave output, which may be unsuitable for powering some types of equipment. Depending on the power supply design, your gear may not work reliably when powered from an inexpensive inverter.

<LI>Battery capacity. You'll need to use a deep cycle type battery. A car battery will be damaged if discharged completely and is unsuitable for this task. Sealed lead-acid (SLA) batteries, like those used in computer UPS's, are ideal for this sort of task. A 12AH battery can run a 1A load for 12 hours. Note that the inverse is not true if the battery is loaded too heavily - a 12AH battery will run a 12A load for less than an hour. So you'll need to oversize your battery or use several identical batteries in order to avoid losing capacity.

 

<LI>Recharging batteries. You'll need a good charge controller to recharge the batteries between use. If you have access to a vehicle during shooting, a current limited battery charger will let you slowly charge your battery bank (even during use) without overloading the vehicle's altenator or discharging the vehicle battery.

</UL>

<p>It seems that inverters which work (pure sine) for studios strobes fit into two categories:</p>

 

<ol>

<li>They have the ability to meet the surge presented by the equipment.</li>

<li>They have internal circuitry which will limit the surge.</li>

</ol>

<p>The surge from these strobes is generally about 3-4 times the Watt second rating of the unit. So for a 250 Wsec strobe you can expect about 750-1000 Watts of surge. If the inverter does not have the capability to limit this surge then the components life will be reduced.<br>

I have been testing a 120 W true sine wave inverter this afternoon which fits into the second category. It seems to work.<br>

It's a 1/2 of the size of a 300 W unit, and 1/4 the size of a 600 W unit which does have the surge capacity for this 250 Ws strobe. Oh and it is 1/2 the price of the later unit.<br>

If there are any experienced photographers who would be interested in field trialling one of these units to see how it works in the real world please contact me.</p>

<p>Thanks<br>

ken@samlexamerica.com</p>