Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

Can you run an Einstein off of a car inverter? Like one you would by from a retail store? If so how many watts does it need to be? Would this cheap option work?


http://www.canadiantire.ca/AST/browse/4 ... ?locale=en


If that's not an option the next choice for me this week is a gas generator ~2000 watts. Do i have to make sure it says pure sign wave inverter? Any info/tips on using a generator with
one or two Einsteins would be great.

Thanks
-Jj

After a quick search on the forum it seems that gas generators put out good enough power.

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=527&p=3646&hilit=generators#p3646

It would still be good to know what you would need in a car inverter to power Einsteins.

-Jj

The inverter needs to be a pure sine wave, current limited. Depending on budget and how fast you wish the light to recycle will determine the size of inverter. 120 watt pure sine wave inverter will do the trick. For a faster recycle, something like 300w or 600w could be used.

As a rule of thumb when using a gas generator always figure a 1000 watts for each unit you plug in. This covers the peak draw during the recycling. The generator needs to be grounded and voltage regulated.

I just got home from a shoot... I ran out of juice on my Vagabond mini. I shooting a calendar for a fire dept, and they had a generator on their truck. So we fired it up, plugged in my two Einsteins and they worked, for a few shots. Randomly, they shut off, and continued to do so regularly after the first shut off. Why would that be? Unfortunately, I have NO tech data on the generator.

Bet the generator was underpowered....if it is, it'll cause a pretty severe brownout during the initial surge of a strobe recharge...
Sounds like you should have been running a VML per Einstein ;-)

Without the specs on the generator, it is hard to say. Could have been underpowered, could have been modified sine wave, there may have been some grounding issues.

Were the modeling lamps on? Sounds like you might have been shooting very aggressively . . . . could be the overheat sensors in Einstein caused the shutdowns?

They weren't on. I was shooting with only one Einstein after the initial shut down. I shot the one at full power, but not really quickly. Ambient temp was about 75 degs.

I have a hard time believing that a generator on a fire truck would have a hard time powering a strobe, but not sure about the "consistency" of the power output of it. One reason I think this could be the problem is because when the einstein would shut off, it was right after it fired without me triggering it.

Were you using a cyber commander by chance?