Battery powered strobes

[gary_donnelly2]

I am intrigued by the battery powered strobes coming out of China. I have been a commercial photographer for many years. I am winding down now and tired of lugging around my Speedotron black line power packs. I can live with having less power. What concerns me is the chance that 5 years down the road you need to replace the battery and the manufacture has either discontinued your battery, or has gone out of business. I've never heard of these brands before. Does this worry anyone else, or am I just over thinking it?

[Jochen_S]

5 years down the road you need to replace the battery

So what? - You'll know the needed voltage. What would you have done 20 years ago? - Wasn't wiring NiCd sub Cs to Vivitar 283s kind of "normal"? - I ran Braun flashes requiring a discontinued 8V Pb battery on ham radio PSUs and made wooden battery dummies, to power Metz hammerheads the same way.

I'd eyeball the original battery, figure out if a dummy is within my woodworking skills and if so, I'd feel fine & confident. - I don't want to encourage electric co-idiots to mess deep inside their studio strobes' housings! But hooking "something battery" that you are able to charge & operate safely to a pair of wires, leading to the regular contacts of a flash shouldn't be overly dangerous.

If you are scared by that thought: Stick to somewhat known brands? - According to rumors (I'm Euro) there is Buff catering the US and maybe the company behind Honeybadgers will survive?

[JDMvW]

Hey some of those units have NO user-replaceable batteries when the built-in ones give up the ghost.

 

Lots of items, particularly cheap ones, are use and throw-away. Unfortunate, perhaps, but there you have it.

[glen_h]

The Vivitar 283, always my favorite flash, uses 4 AA cells, either alkaline or NiCd (or more recently NiMH).

I had NiCd cells for mine soon after I got it.

 

In general, I have not been against replacing NiCd cells in devices.

 

Recently I replaced 15 sub-C NiCd cells in a cordless drill. It is a nice one with variable

speed, unlike the one I replaced (again sub-C) cells a few years ago.

 

I found someone selling battery packs made for some discontinued device, to take the

cells out of, and with a little luck many of them still wired together. But otherwise, they have

solder tabs, as it is hard to solder directly to the cells.

 

I have not yet tried replacing lithium cells in anything. I don't know that there is a reason

not to do it, but it I can get replacement packs, I tend to do that.