Lencarta (Jinbei) Safari 600 Mk1 - any experience?

[rodeo_joe1]

I just bought an old Lencarta branded "Safari 600" flash kit at auction - a real auction not Ebay!

It comprises two heads and a 600 watt-second battery-operated power pack. 

It all seems to work OK, but I have no idea how old or what use/abuse this kit has had. My concern is with the 24 volt NiMH battery pack. Spares are apparently Unobtainium and would no doubt be ridiculously expensive. 

So my questions are, if anyone has experience with this kit; what number of full-power pops is reasonable from a fully charged battery? And how frequently does the battery need charging in storage without use? 

I obviously don't want to lug it on location only to find it go flat on me after a few pops. Although I can't complain too much if the battery capacity is reduced, say, to half what it should be, since it only cost me about 1/10th of the new price. 

Info on the kit for the curious: The power pack supplies one or both heads simultaneously, dividing it's maximum 600 ws equally between heads. The heads cannot be controlled individually. Triggering - at a safe 7 volts - is by 3.5mm jack from the power pack, and "Power" is continuously variable on the power pack down to 1/8th power. 

Tests so far look promising. One head with standard 6" (Bowens-S fit) reflector gives a measured 100 ISO GN of 40(m) ~ 130(ft) and the CT remains fairly constant with varying power. In a softbox brolly the same head allows an exposure of between f/9 and f/10 at 2.5 metres. Also, the flash exposure will easily overpower overcast daylight, and pretty much balances full sunlight.

So far, so good. I expect only time will tell how limiting the lack of control over individual head output will prove to be. Although I'm fully prepared to augment the two head kit with a speedlight or two. 

Grateful for any additional info on this Lencarta or Jinbei outfit. 

[rodeo_joe1]

To answer one of my own questions: It seems that I struck lucky with the battery condition. I got over 100 full power pops from the battery with both heads connected. I can live with that. 

I could find absolutely no trace of an instruction manual online. Lencarta seem to have erased every trace of this item from their website, and it appears no-one else has archived any hard info about it online either. 

Doing a bit of maths - dividing the 3000 mAH/24 volt battery capacity by the stated 600 watt-second flash energy - shows that 120 pops is a reasonable expectation. As a comparison, a modern 75 watt-second speedlight running on 2500 mAH/5.2volt NiMH cells gives maybe 170 full power shots, which is about the same ratio between battery capacity and flash energy. 

The recycle time of the Lencarta "Safari" isn't exactly speedy though. Recycle time is at best 4 seconds, and this lengthened to over 5 seconds as the battery wound down.

I'll just have to wait and see how the battery holds its charge during storage without use. 

However, the battery casing is huge and would easily take 24 volts worth of 4000 mAH Lithium Ion cells, with plenty of room to spare for a battery management circuit.

 

The Safari battery pack next to a speedlight for comparison. The battery pack also weighs at least twice as much as the speedlight! 

[John Seaman]

Joe, out of curiosity I googled these and found two reviews which may help:

https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/review-lencarta-safari-heads-and-ring-light.266649/

https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/initial-review-of-the-lencarta-safari-600-ringflash-and-head.114813/

 

[rodeo_joe1]

Thanks for those links John. I also found various other snippets of information on the Web. There was one containing a maker's claim of 1150 flashes per charge (!) - sounds unfeasible, right? But when the Lencarta rep was asked outright if that was full-power flashes, he evaded answering. No surprise there, then. 

Anyhow. I left the unit fully charged and unused for over a week, and then found I could squeeze 120 full-power pops, at 10 second intervals, out of the battery. That'll do. It's about what I expected.

The Chinese origin of the kit is given away by the amusing directions printed on the battery - "Do not dabble." and "Fever in using, charge battery after cooling." A reminder to pack some cold beers or Malaria tablets when on location perhaps?

I might still look into converting the battery pack to 4000mAh Lithium-ion cells... but the price of those has rocketed recently. 

Ah, for 55 quid plus auction fees I think I did OK though.