Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

Hi, I was wondering if Paul or TS could answer a technical question for me.

I've been looking at petrol generators for running the AB lights outdoors but I understand that they don't put out a true sine wave unless you buy a top end expensive version.

Here in the UK I'm using a 2000watt step down transformer to reduce the 240v wall outlet down to 110v for the AB to run off. Will this if plugged into a 240v petrol generator smooth the sine wave back to a proper curve (as it's a proper toroidal step down) or will it only change the voltage?

My aim is to be able to strobe continuously for 8fps for around 3 seconds for extreme sports location shooting.

Any ideas?

Generators put out a true sine wave . . . not necessarily a clean waveform or well regulated, but they generally should be fine. They don't put out square waves like UPS backups and cheap non-sine inverters.

That's good news - thanks Luap for the quick response.

Going back to this, I'm thinking of one of these:

http://www.powerland.co.uk/product_info ... cts_id=318

Would this be able to run three lights? I know I can on my 2000w mains outlet inverter......

Does anyone have any experience with this kind of setup?

I know the AB are built for 110v, but does this have leeway such as 115v, 120v?

We do typically reccomend using 1000W per head. This gives enough head room so that the generator will not have to ramp up power. If using lower powered generators, the generator will sense the surge from the lights during recycle and may up thier power output. Since they cannot recover as fast as the lights return to a normal power draw, too much power can then be delivered to the light, and eventually damage the light.

That's exactly the type of info I needed, 3000w it is then! (or less lights :D )

While this is a UK thread, it's of interest to others across the world. I would like to know if there are specific brands that are recommended and if the inverter style generators have any advantage over non-inverter style. Supposedly they put out a cleaner wave with less potential damage to the lights. The potential price difference is pretty substantial but may be worth it.

The big thing is to have the clean power. Honda "i" series seem to be pretty popular (EU2000i, for example).

The EU2000i was what I looked at originally but hideously expensive.

The 2000w one I put above is a pure sine wave too, just 10% of the price of the Honda!

Inspiration for this is from:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwzTRAfwqo8

That was just cool! Thanks for posting. I found myself wondering what the Einsteins would do. I saw the video from Ellis Vener at 10 FPS.

http://vimeo.com/11302664

@TS How forgiving are the Einsteins on power? Have they been tested with a generator?

Robert