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Using Calumet 750r Travelites with Paul Buff Vagabond II


arik_sokol

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<p>I have a question about using Calumet 750r Travelites with a Paul Buff Vagabond II Battery Pack -<br>

Would you leave it set to "AC" and plug the 750r into the Vagabond like a wall socket? Or do you switch the travelite to "battery" setting?<br>

I ask because I just got the vagabond. Tested it yesterday and just left the 750r on the AC setting. It seemed to work fine. I was shooting indoors so I plugged the 750r back into the wall and shot 200+ photos. Today I was midway through finishing an indoor shoot (still plugged into the wall) and the same travelite I had tested the Vagabond with started smoking profusely and seemed to die.<br>

Sending the 750r in to get it fixed (I still have 2 that work ) but I'm a little worried about trying the other 750r Travelites with the Vagabond again, and the Calumet website is woefully lacking in support info. Any help is greatly appreciated!</p>

 

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<p>Sorry about your strobe light I hate to say but it may be a total loss or such an expensive repair that you may be better off get another strobe, I know its late but I posted this thread awhile back to avoid this exact problem.<br>

<a rel="nofollow" href="../photography-lighting-equipment-techniques-forum/00Zv6C">http://www.photo.net/photography-lighting-equipment-techniques-forum/00Zv6C</a><br>

I also have the Bowens /Calumet 750R and it is not recommended by even Alien bees to use other strobes with the Vagabond. Although you did NOTHING wrong by leaving the switch on AC the problem is the Vagabond is only designed for Alien Bees brand lights. Technically speaking what happened I am sure others will chime in to elaborate more technically what happened but in a nutshell you may have fried your capacitor or more.</p>

<blockquote>

<p><em>Flash Units from Other Manufacturers: The Vagabond Mini™ Lithium is designed specifically for powering Paul C. Buff™ products and <strong>we cannot make any claim for suitability with products from other manufacturers, nor can we accept any liability for any damage that might be caused to such equipment. </strong>We will, however, warranty the Vagabond Mini™ Lithium itself as well as any Paul C. Buff™ equipment it powers</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>I recommend that you from now on use ONLY Bowens compatible batteries such as the Travelpak. Especially since these monolights are both AC/DC on location they were really designed for DC use (although there are options for reliable inverters in the thread I posted such as Innovatronix) . It can even be the old Calumet Travelpak battery brand they are cheap and will give you at plenty of pops at full power 150 @ full power and 300 pops with the Travelpak plus.</p>

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  • 3 months later...

<p>thanks for the info. I've never suffered a failure quite like that though I did have a 750R that had some kind f failure resulting in the inability to adjust the power.<br /> <br />I used the 750R in AC mode with both the VB II and now the VML. I can't say I used the hell out of it but I've rented the former a few times and own a couple of the latter. The one thing I will note is that you can't run two off of one VML. They will both fail to charge. <br>

<br />Oh and in a more basic note - they've worked fine with the battery power from the mini lithium but you may have different luck. My 750R's are a few years old.</p>

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