Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

It's not exactly clear to me if I can use the standard modeling lamps (250W) with the vagabond mini.
More exactly if I would dim them to a very low level do they reduce the power draw or would they simply burn out the inverter?

Thank you.

You cannot use the 250W model lamp at full power. If you did, it would not achieve full brightness, and you would quickly overheat the inverter. You will probably be OK if it turns on and you immediately reduce the power to under 120W. (If you are using multiple lights divide the 120W by the number of lights). While 120 is the maximum Wattage, we recommend using considerably less power or using for very brief periods of time.

The higher the output, the fewer number of shots you can get on a charge, and the longer it will take the light(s) to recycle. We do offer a 25W model lamp for this purpose, if you are interested.

One consideration here is the fact that as you dim a tungsten (halogen is still tungsten) it becomes less and less efficient in Lumens per watt.

For user convenience, Einstein and Cyber Commander model lamp dimming , while expressed in "watts", is actually in Lumens (so you can compare real model lumens to flash Lumen Seconds for WYSIWYG.

What this means is that when you dim an Einstein to, say, 1/10 power, the actually wattage drawn may only be 1/5 or thereabouts.

This is why we offer the 25W Einstein modeling lamp . . . because it gives you more light and higher color temperature than you would get by dimming the 250W lamp down to the 25W equivalent Lumen level.

Regarding LED modeling . . . the problem here is the small bi pin base used in Einstein does not allow room or cooling area for the required AC to low voltage DC circuitry needed for LEDs. So nobody makes a retrofit.

This is not a problem with the larger E26 base lamps used in AB and White Lightning. There are several effective direst replacement LEDs available - even at Walmart for $10, that are quite bright and quite usable with VLM.

Thank you for the quick and comprehensive responses! Sounds that it's best to get the 25W versions, but good to know they can still work with the dimmed standard lamps.

I recently ordered two vagabond minis and spare modeling lamps (250W) for my Einsteins but completely forgot that I should also get the 25W versions for proper location use.
Because I'm having them shipped to Europe it takes very long for a new order to reach me so that's why I asked :)