Bowens Quadmatic 3K questions

I'm an amateur on a tight budget so grabbed the opportunity to get a Bowens Quadmatic 3K with a single 3000Ws flash head for a very reasonable price; it came without any manual, but operation seems relatively obvious. I have noticed that when it's charging, the power pack makes clicking noises, like relays operating perhaps, and a soft pop sound, similar to the flash operating. Is this normal? I've had no luck tracking down a manual for this unit unfortunately.

TIA, Martin

I decided to open the generator pack up and noticed some of the links between caps had blown open, clearly some of the caps aren't happy; looks like it's going to need new caps! Before anyone tells me to be careful, I'm an electronic engineer and have experience of high energy systems with voltages of up to 10kV, so I know what precautions to take.

. . . I decided to open the generator pack up . . . clearly some of the caps aren't happy; looks like it's going to need new caps! Before anyone tells me to be careful, I'm an electronic engineer and have experience . . .

 

Even so: be careful.

Good luck with, what seems to be an easy fix.

 

WW

Good luck with, what seems to be an easy fix.

Nyaaa. Maybe not so easy.

Getting hold of suitable capacitors at an economic-to-repair price is going to be tricky.

 

They really need to be low ESR types, and at around 400v working and a few thousand microfarads each, that doesn't come cheap. Not in a size smaller than a galvanised dustbin (trash can).

I didn't think of the cost of parts . . . good point: the OP did specifically stated "tight budget".

Maybe this is an example of an opportunity not being at a budget price.

Perhaps the OP will let us know how he gets on.

 

WW

Following up this old thread, I have been using a QuadMatic 3k with a single 3k head for a few years for wet plate studio work but recently the recharge has been slow or not even reaching go state, assume ageing capacitors ?

Like yourself Martin am an Electronics engineer by trade so appreciate the risks. Opened up (very carefully) and can see a couple of Caps are looking very sad, guess need to replace several.

My question is to Martin did you source any replacement items, have only taken off the covers and not dug the capacitor tray out to see offending type/specs etc.

Any help welcome before I get serious with the unit chassis, looks like the rivets need drilling out to remove cap tray ?

Am UK based (Perthshire)

Cheers

Dave

Sorry, I should have got back and reported my findings. I pulled out the entire capacitor bank and tested every capacitor by slowly charging to the rated voltage via a series resistor. Many failed and wouldn't reform easily, so they were thrown away. I sourced replacement caps from a company that specialises in photoflash capacitors and xenon lamps, xenonflashtubes.com

Price was reasonable and they seem to be very good quality. They are, of course, considerably smaller than the originals, so i had to make packers from cardboard tubes to make them fit with the remaining original capacitors.