Making Novatron Power Pack Portable

[randon]

I would like to do on location shooting with my Novatron 440 Plus power pack and 2000, 2010 and 2040 heads.

Problem is, there will be no electricity onsite. Has anyone tried to make a Novatron power pack portable by

carrying around a car battery or some other form of electricity? What would this take? I have a few good 12

volt car batteries laying around and a 500watt inverter. Would this work? Recycle time might suffer.

[ellis_vener_photography]

If you don't want to try to rig a DIY solution go to http://www.alienbees.com and look at the Vagabond II

battery + inverter kit.

[hjoseph7]

I'm starting to like these Alien Bees.

[randmcnatt]

I'm not familiar with the 440-Plus, but if it has a transformer it will work with a low-cost square-wave or pseudo-sine-wave inverter. If it has a solid-state voltage multiplier, it will require a pure-sine inverter. I've used a cheap inverter hooked up to a Honda Civic to power an old Speedotron 400 and an older Novatron 440 with no problems.

 

If it turns out you need the pure-sine, the AB is probably your best solution.

 

A 500-watt inverter can charge a 440 watt-second power pack in about one second.

[randon]

DANGER: USE EXTREME CAUTION WHEN WORKING WITH NOVATRON POWERPACKS AS THE ELECTRICITY STORED IN THE CAPACITOR CAN

BE EXTREMELY DANGEROUS, POSSIBLY FATAL.

Note: I am not recommending anyone do this, but rather this is a posting of the results of my

non-scientific/non-technical experimentation. I cannot speak to or be responsible for any damage this may cause

to any equipment used in this manner.

 

Thanks to all who responded to this thread. I am happy to let you know that I did attempt a lesser setup and it

worked! This was fun experiment to try and make my currently owned Novatron 240 system completely portable. I

also tried powering up my 440 plus and the recycle times took a little longer, but it worked too. I felt the 440

plus was putting too much strain on the inverter.

I also found out that if you take AMPS times VAC equals Wattage. For my 440 Plus system, it was 5 Amps X 120VAC

= 600 watts, so the required inverter would be at least 600watts. The 440 worked best at the 120 w/s setting,

less at the 240 w/s setting and most strain was at the 440 w/s setting. A higher wattage inverter would have

improved the performance of the 440.

 

I successfully got 2 hours of mostly continous flashes out of the following setup and could have gotten much more:

 

Novatron 240 powerpack 1 Amp at 120VAC set at 240w/s no modeling lights.

 

Novatron 2120C head full power

 

Novatron 2100 head full power

 

Sealed 12-volt battery rated at 26 Amp Hours non-car battery.

 

400 watt continuous/800 watt peak DC to AC inverter. This inverter was a modified sine wave (cheap), not a pure

sine wave (expensive). I don't know if a different type of sine-wave inverter would have made any difference.

 

Recycle times for the power pack ranged from 5 - 8 seconds on a battery without full charge.

I have it on good authority that a car battery would work too, but you have to be extremely careful with tipping

the battery since it is not sealed.

[randon]

Thanks for the Alien Bees recommendations as well, but I was hoping to find a cheap solution utilizing the equipment I already own. I have to wonder if there are other Novatron owners out there that have thought the same thing but never tried it or tried it and never told anyone.

 

There are many possible uses for such a setup. Mine is for a wedding, formals included, that I will be shooting at a park in afternoon, 4-5 p.m., daylight hours. I really just need some high power, high quality fill light. This should do the trick.

 

As it is, I will only have to spend $30-$40 on a modified sine wave inverter (the one I tested with was borrowed). I have everything else I need.

[tomweis]

You want one of these: http://www.innovatronix.com/detailpage.asp?productid=366&categoryid=42