Studio Strobe from Car Accessory Power?

[CharlieJ]

I'm doing a night shoot this weekend and my JTL battery packs have both died. They show charged, but neither will fire the monolight. Rather than going deeper into that, I'm trying to figure out if I can use my car accessory plug to power the light. I plan to use off-camera flash for fill (in a soft box) and hope to use a Mobilight 300 as the main light (in a soft box).

I have a single outlet, Powerline 300 Watts Peak DC to AC Inverter (125 Watts continuous operation; metal body; fused). 12 gauge extension cords to get from car to strobe. The car accessory fuse is probably 10A.
The inverter is this one: Powerline 300W Inverter (Photo source: GovDeals.com)

The question is -- Can I power the monolight through an inverter hooked to the car accessory outlet? Or, will firing a strobe, at say half power, burn up the wiring in the car outlet?

[zona5101]

I did some research on buying / building a power convertor for running monolights from a car battery. What I found was a lot of warnings and red flags about clipped sine waves & brown power and how they could jack up your lights. The price to buy or build a convertor that had the right circuitry to not cause a problem was in the neighborhood of $200 to $250. For that price I decided to get a AB Vagabond mini. It is a lithium battery pack but even better it has the proper circuitry so you can run your lights directly from the car battery.

If your not concerned with the convertor compatibility and just worried about the amp draw through the cigarette lighter, just change the cig plug to clamps and put it directly on the battery terminals.

[CharlieJ]

zona5101,
THANKS for the info. I can't find any sine wave data on the Powerline 300W, so I'm going to err on the side of caution and not use it -- UNLESS someone can provide information saying the setup definitely works without damaging the light or vehicle circuitry.

And thanks for the heads up on the Vagabond Mini. That might be in my near future. It eliminates the proprietary cord from JTL and would allow me to use the other two brands of monolights I have. Cool beans!

[CharlieJ]

Sorry to post back-to-back, but I have another idea -- just for this weekend. I also have an Alinco DM-330MV power supply (specs link).

Could I use the clamps to attach the Alinco to the car battery? Then, plug the Powerline inverter into the cigar-adapter on the Alinco -- and power the monolight? Or, would I still possibly have the sine wave issue zona5101 mentioned above? As you can tell, I'm a rank novice at electronics.

This would be a temporary setup, but it could work without any problem due to the Alinco having high end circuitry designed to run a 100W or 30A ham radio.

???

[zona5101]

??? the Alinco looks to be a DC power supply - it's input is 120v ac so it won't take 12v Dc as an input...

the converer you want to use will specify itself as a "pure sine wave" converter.
here's a bit on it from Buff:
http://www.paulcbuff.com/forums/view...f95e815ba7be03

Plus you can google more about it.

[CharlieJ]

Originally Posted by zona5101

??? the Alinco looks to be a DC power supply - it's input is 120v ac so it won't take 12v Dc as an input...

the converer you want to use will specify itself as a "pure sine wave" converter.
here's a bit on it from Buff:
Paul C. Buff FORUM Archive • View topic - Battery Powering of Studio Flash

Plus you can google more about it.

The thing is, I'm such a rank novice, I am not sure what I'm looking for. The Vagabond Mini sounds like the ticket, especially since the Alinco has the wrong input voltage for my purposes. OK, thanks again for setting me straight and pointing me in the right direction. Hopefully, if anyone else thinks up the same idea, this thread will help them not harm themselves, their lights or their vehicle.

[OsmosisStudios]

This is why I vastly prefer my SB units...

[CharlieJ]

Originally Posted by OsmosisStudios

This is why I vastly prefer my SB units...

The SB-800 is a great flash. I completely agree. I was actually thinking of purchasing a couple used flashes and going that route. However, I already have three monolights -- so I want to utilize them for their power, etc. But, this is good food for thought.THANKS!

[zona5101]

So CharlieJ, you can buy a pure sine wave inverter and run you lights from your car. This might be a good choice if you also want to run sensitive equipment from your car such as computers. For me, I have a 'regular' dc-ac converter that I use for most tasks. I didn't want to get another converter. I contenplated a gas generator because I could use that for other stuff...but then the one I would want would be ballsy and that would make it a pain to move around. I was going the DIY route until I found that Buff was coming out with the Mini. It had a lithium battery instead of sealed lead, had good specs and I learned you can hook it up to a regular car battery and it will do the pure sine wave conversion (in case you shoot the lithium dead). I have had that battery hooked up to a fan cooled studio strobe for hours and shot to my hearts content on any power setting and the thing never struggled. I have had it out on two other outings and still haven't plugged it in to recharge it...


this was shot with a 650ws monolight through a 3'x4' softbox running on the vagabond mini