Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

I'm looking to purchase a portable (barely) high powered lighting system, after looking at Broncolor and profoto I've realised it's far too expensive.
So now I'm looking at the Zeus sytem with 2x2500w/s floor packs and the bi-tube flash head with a large softbox/octabox to give me a true 5000w/s output from a single head. Unfortunately this is a 110v system whilst Australia is a 240v power supply which raises a few problems.
I know I'll have to run a generator to power such a system outdoors, ideally it would have a dual voltage 110/240v. with a pure sinewave/inverter output. Does anyone know what is available that would suit my needs. What capacity would be required to run the 2 floor packs?
The intended use is for shooting weddings in bright direct sunlight and ideally overpowering the strong Australian sun by a factor of 2 f-stops giving an underexposed background with lovely soft front light.
Any other ideas/suggestions would be much appreciated.

At what distance will you be working? What is the sync speed of your camera? How big of a group are you wanting to shoot with this set up?

At 14' (4.3 meters) you can get f/16 with one E640 (or AB1600 or X1600) in a soft silver PLM. At 10', you will gain one more stop (f/22).

Using the "sunny 16" rule at ISO 100, if your can sync at 1/250, that will put the background two stops under.

This would work very well for couples and small groups, and would be able to run from a Vagabond Mini (and depending on which specific flash, you may have the option for 240V).

But to answer the question on generator size, we would recommend 1500-2000W per pack.

Thanks for the advice :)
The groups I get can be 10 or more people. My camera will synch at 1/250.
The broncolor system I used the other day was 2500w/s and was only just powerful enough (barely), but I can't afford the exorbitant hire or purchase cost of them.
I've actually tried several E640 powered by a generator, and whilst it is a great unit I found it to be underpowered for my needs, hence my interest in the zeus bi tube head with twin floor packs.
I don't suppose it's possible to get a zeuss custom made for 240v as that would solve all of my problems ?
Otherwise, what about voltage transformers for 110-220v, have they ever been used successfully with your products ie. http://www.dvdoverseas.com/store/index. ... og6_0.html

No, we are not able to produce a single 240V Zeus system. You can use transformers to adapt the power. I would recommend two 1500 or one 3000W converters at minimum.