hjoseph7 Posted December 19, 2023 Share Posted December 19, 2023 (edited) Back in 2010 I purchased 2 brand new Norman LH2000 lampheads from B&H with the 2 R9114 Blowers. The LH2000 lamp heads are part of Norman's 900 system that can handle up to 2500 watts ! My power pack consists of a Norman P800 Power Pack rated at 800 watts max, which I purchased used from eBay. I'm still not sure why I purchased this equipment since it has been mostly sitting in my closet collecting dust ? Back then I figured that every professional photographer should have at least a 4 light portrait system just in case. I had some money to blow, so I said to myself why not ? Later on, as recently as 3 years ago I purchased 2 more LH2000 lampheads(sans blowers) to fill out my 4 light system. The other day, i figured i might as well sell this equipment since it wasn't getting any use. Before selling it, I decided to set up a 4 light portrait system in my living room using 'Elsa' my trusted mannequin as my 24/7 model to see if everything worked. I tried all types of lighting set-ups including: 1 light, 2 light, 3 light set-ups. Short lighting, Broad lighting, Rembrandt, Loop, Clam shell, Butterfly, Split lighting, Back lighting etc. With the LH2000 lampheads connected to my P800 power pack I used the following attachments: Soft boxes, Umbrellas, different sized Reflectors, Beauty Dish, Diffusers, Strip boxes, which I happen to have accumulated along the way. One LH2000 lamp was used as the Key light, another LH2000 lamp head was used as the Fill light. Both are set at 100W each and due to the distance between them are about 2 F-stops appart. For Background and Hair light, I used 2 Photogenics AKC320 Monolights connected via Pocket Wizards. There is also a Pocket Wizard on my camera and a Pocket Wizard on my Norman P800 pack which sets the whole thing off. One thing I noticed is that the R9114 blowers did not seem to be blowing, that is cooling off the LH2000 lamp heads ? These blowers are supposed to cool the LH2000 lampheads when they are confined to softboxes, or umbrellas and the heat get's to high. However, even when I put the LH2000 lamps heads inside a softbox nothing happened ? No matter how hard I tried I could not get the fans inside the R9114 blowers to turn on ? The blowers connect to the lamphead via an electric plug, so I made sure to check those connections. I thought I might be doing something wrong, so I sent an email to the folks at 'Norman Lighting', but they never got back to me ? Norman is virtually out of business these days, so good luck trying to contact them. They still sell equipment on a limited basis though, through Promark that also services, Quantum, Photogenics, and other well know legacy brands. Not sure what to do next and whether I should put my 2 R9114 blowers (virtually unused) for sale or not, I scoured the web to see if I could find some Manuals, or anything on the R9114 blowers, but I came up short. Finally I dug deep and I remembered that the salesman at B&H told me 13 years ago, that these Blowers are 'thermostatically' controlled. That is they only come on when the heat gets high enough around the lamp head ! To test my theory, I took an ordinary Hair Dryer Blower and began blowing heat towards the R9114 blowers. Sure enough, the fans inside the blowers started spinning ! They spun for a while, but if I turned off the Hair Dryer blower, they stopped spinning... This is kind of cheasy ! The fans inside my Alienbees Monlolights come on as soon as you hit the switch and stay on until you turn the unit off. No wonder these blowers are selling on ebay for only about $15. Not sure how much I paid for them, but It must have been much higher than that ? Edited December 19, 2023 by hjoseph7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJG Posted December 19, 2023 Share Posted December 19, 2023 How noisy are the fans? That might explain why they are only supposed to come on when the temperature gets to the point of possible damage. With my X series White Lightning monolights I had the factory set them so the fans came on whenever they were turned on, even though they had heat sensors to turn the fans on when necessary. I don't mind the noise and I have had far fewer repairs since I did that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hjoseph7 Posted December 19, 2023 Author Share Posted December 19, 2023 21 minutes ago, AJG said: How noisy are the fans? That might explain why they are only supposed to come on when the temperature gets to the point of possible damage. With my X series White Lightning monolights I had the factory set them so the fans came on whenever they were turned on, even though they had heat sensors to turn the fans on when necessary. I don't mind the noise and I have had far fewer repairs since I did that. The fans are wisper quiet, can't hardly tell if they are on or not. That's a great idea, by having the fans on all the time it also saves the life of the very expensive tubes. The problem with the LH2000, is that they do not have an ON/OFF switch so I'm not sure how that would work ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJG Posted December 19, 2023 Share Posted December 19, 2023 You would have to bypass the heat sensor somehow. White Lightning had no problem doing that with my X series monolights, but it sounds like Norman is going to be harder to service. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ben_hutcherson Posted December 20, 2023 Share Posted December 20, 2023 All my Norman blowers on my LH2000 lamp heads are tied to the modeling lights..no lights on, no blower. Ramp the lights up, blowers speed up. BTW, this is with the P800. P1250, and P2000 power packs, all of which I have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hjoseph7 Posted December 20, 2023 Author Share Posted December 20, 2023 "All my Norman blowers on my LH2000 lamp heads are tied to the modeling lights" BINGO ! When I turn on the modeling lights the fans come on automatically. Thanks so much ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ben_hutcherson Posted December 20, 2023 Share Posted December 20, 2023 I just looked and at least the blowers on the flash heads I had readily accessible are R9111. They are the older model variable speed blower, and given the way they operate I'd always just assumed that they piggyback on the modeling light circuit and couldn't be activated separate of them. You can also hear them speed up and slow down as you change the brightness of the modeling lights. I've used my Norman lights a decent bit-to the point that I have some semi-permanently set-up, so the fans running at all without the modeling lights being on is news to me. My main Norman kit-the initial 8 lights along with 3 power packs I bought-came from a deceased local pro. They'd been donated to the camera club of which he was a long time member, and two club members who had used those specific lights a lot(on club photo shoots) walked me through operation of them when I bought them. Their advice was switch on the modeling lights if you anticipate firing them enough for heat to be an issue. For my use it often isn't, especially considering that I mostly use umbrellas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodeo_joe1 Posted January 28 Share Posted January 28 The modelling lights are what get the units hot. If you don't have the modelling lights on, then there's no reason for the fans to kick in. A flash tube does put out a huge "heat-wave", but it's over in a few milliseconds and doesn't have time to heat up the flash head significantly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hjoseph7 Posted January 28 Author Share Posted January 28 25 minutes ago, rodeo_joe1 said: The modelling lights are what get the units hot. If you don't have the modelling lights on, then there's no reason for the fans to kick in. A flash tube does put out a huge "heat-wave", but it's over in a few milliseconds and doesn't have time to heat up the flash head significantly. Once I turned on the modeling lights, the units(blowers) switched on automatically... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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