# DIY Strobe Battery Pack Questions



## Stradawhovious (Feb 21, 2016)

Well, this is just in the planning stages, but I'd like to get all my ducks in a row before I fire up the soldering iron.

If my assumptions are right, a very servicable battery pack for my Neewer C-300 strobes could be made for around $50 with  7amp lead acid battery, a cheap power inverter and an inline fuse.

The only issue I can see is the quality of the electricity produced by this setup. This will produce a "dirty" electricity that could potentially fry some fine electronics.

Since a pure sine wave power inverter is prohibitively expensive for this application it's important for me to know if my strobe units will be damaged by a dirty electric source.  I assume that since the unit is all analog there won't be a problem, but I'm not an electroscienceographist I can't be sure.

So, anyone in the know here?  Any way for me to tell if I could run this setup?


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## tirediron (Feb 21, 2016)

If your strobes are indeed completely analog, then "square AC" shouldn't cause a problem, BUT are you absolutely certain that there is no digital circuitry inside?  I wouldn't be surprised if there was a digital control circuit or something in there.


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## Stradawhovious (Feb 21, 2016)

Nope.  Not certain.  As a matter of fact, there more than likelt is SOME in there, but with all analog inputs and potentiometers,  I think there is a far better chance of success than with units that have digital readouts and momentary switch inputs. 

If there is a way I can know for sure, I will go for it.  If not...  i will invest in a couple miles of extention cords.


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## table1349 (Feb 22, 2016)

Cheap inverter plus digital components equals


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## Designer (Feb 22, 2016)

Stradawhovious said:


> _If my assumptions are right_, a very serviceable battery pack for my Neewer C-300 strobes ..Any way for me to tell if I could ru *I* n this setup? (FIFY)


Annnnn..d if your assumptions are wrong, then what?


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## tirediron (Feb 22, 2016)

Designer said:


> Stradawhovious said:
> 
> 
> > _If my assumptions are right_, a very serviceable battery pack for my Neewer C-300 strobes ..Any way for me to tell if I could ru *I* n this setup? (FIFY)
> ...


 Then it's back to Amazon, and $90 later he has a replacement strobe.


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## Stradawhovious (Feb 22, 2016)

tirediron said:


> Designer said:
> 
> 
> > Stradawhovious said:
> ...



Exactly.  It's not like it's a thousand dollar unit here...

And to reiterate... if there isn't a sure fire way to determine the DIY battery won't destroy the strobe, I won't make it.


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## Designer (Feb 22, 2016)

Stradawhovious said:


> tirediron said:
> 
> 
> > Then it's back to Amazon, and $90 later he has a replacement strobe.
> ...


Somewhere you could find an electrical diagram that shows the input power requirements.  If what they are doing is taking AC and rectifying it to DC, then maybe that is where you tap in to provide battery power.  

It seems silly to invert DC to AC, which then is rectified to DC for the capacitors to use.  

Just wondering here.


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## table1349 (Feb 22, 2016)

Stradawhovious said:


> tirediron said:
> 
> 
> > Designer said:
> ...


I believe the optimal word in your latest dissertation is FIRE!!!!


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## Braineack (Feb 22, 2016)

no fires in this video:






sine wave inverters arent very expensive anymore -- this video shows one for $50.

But i honestly dont see the harm in powering a monolight with a modified sin wave power inverter.  Your'e charging a capacitor, you're not running a motor.


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## table1349 (Feb 22, 2016)

Braineack said:


> no fires in this video:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I don't either, but the OP wasn't planning on using a sin wave power inverter.


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## Stradawhovious (Feb 22, 2016)

gryphonslair99 said:


> Braineack said:
> 
> 
> > But i honestly dont see the harm in powering a monolight with a modified sin wave power inverter.  Your'e charging a capacitor, you're not running a motor.
> ...




Well no, I said I wasn't planning on using a PURE sine wave inverter, so there's that...

Modified sine is still a dirty power source.





gryphonslair99 said:


> I believe the optimal word in your latest dissertation is FIRE!!!!




Sorry, could you repeat that?  I didn't catch it the first few times you posted it.


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## table1349 (Feb 22, 2016)

Stradawhovious said:


> gryphonslair99 said:
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> 
> > Braineack said:
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## Stradawhovious (Feb 22, 2016)

Thanks.  Much appreciated.


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## table1349 (Feb 22, 2016)




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## Braineack (Feb 22, 2016)

gryphonslair99 said:


> View attachment 116375


do you even know how electrical systems work or just that you know how to follow internet "wisdom"?

the only impact I can think of here is that the capacitor would not fully charge (depends on the way the circuits in the strobe are built).


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## table1349 (Feb 22, 2016)

I mentioned it because a buddy of mine did the same kind of thing only for some audio equipment.  A little DYI project.   

A couple of years later when he and his wife got divorced she really appreciated the new house she got since he had burned down their old house with his DIY project.


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## Braineack (Feb 22, 2016)

audio systems have _*very*_ different power demands than a strobe.

Most strobes don't have Bass-drops.

but dont ask me, ask my assistant:


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## Stradawhovious (Feb 22, 2016)

gryphonslair99 said:


> I mentioned it because a buddy of mine did the same kind of thing only for some audio equipment.  A little DYI project.
> 
> A couple of years later when he and his wife got divorced she really appreciated the new house she got since he had burned down their old house with his DIY project.



Wait... Burned down?  You mean with fire??

Why the hell didn't you say something earlier?


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## Braineack (Feb 22, 2016)

I have two power inverters in my garage, ill hook one up to my freaking mercedes car battery and plug in one of my monolights and go to town.


Now I'm redminded of when I used to work for a 1-hour-photo and we used to shock each other unsuspectedly with capacitors from unspent disposable-camera flashes.


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## table1349 (Feb 22, 2016)

Braineack said:


> gryphonslair99 said:
> 
> 
> > View attachment 116375
> ...


I understand that harmonic distortion can damage or destroy sensitive electric parts.


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## Braineack (Feb 22, 2016)

Marketing for: buy my more expensive product.

I see that often in the photography products arena...


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## Derrel (Feb 22, 2016)

I was looking at this guy's inexpensive DIY project with a low-cost monolight. Super Easy DIY Rechargeable Battery Power Pack For Event Photographers - DIY Photography

I'm not really any type of expert on inverters, but I thought there were basically three grades of inverters, those being low cost cheapies or "square" current models,better, yet still noisy *modified sine wave models*, and then at the top of the pyramid *pure sine wave* inverters. I own a Tronix Explorer pure sine wave inverter that uses a pretty heavy 12-volt, 12-ampere-hour battery that weighs about 8 or 9 pounds I guess (last one was an Enercell 2301219 model), and the whole unit as a whole has been good for 9 years, in that time using up the original battery, then one replacement I installed, and then in late 2015, I had to put Battery #3 into it.

12volt, 12 amp has been PLENTY powerful and fast for me, running mostly 1 x 400 W-s power pack or 1x 600 Watt-s off of it, but It has also run my 1600 W-s pack as well, and the 2400 W-s on occasion; it might take 25-30 second to charge all the capacitors in the 2400 Black Line, but I've fired 60 to 100 frames that way, but you have to "make them count".

I dunno...I bought it to power a 2400 W-s power pack on "occasional use" jobs, and it's sloooooow with the big pack on it, but with a 200- or 400-Watt Speedotron Brown line pack, it's almost as fast as 110-volt wall current. it was said to only be able to handle 1200 W-s, but it can do more, only pretty slowly. I think for a smaller, 150-300 W-s monolight like the Neewers, that the smaller, 7-volt battery would have adequate power, and still light weight; the above DIY setup looks good.

I think if you got a "decent" *modified sine wave* inverter, and not some $25 car repair place cheapie inverter, that you'd likely be okay: I've looked at the Neewer C300 units on-line...they've been made basically unchanged since at least 2010, and they don't look like they have any digital controls...not trying to belittle them, but they look like they are likely build on old-school, low-tech platforms...the way my Speedotron gear is: 1970's technology...


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## tirediron (Feb 23, 2016)

Derrel said:


> ...but they look like they are likely build on old-school, low-tech platforms...the way my Speedotron gear is: 1970's technology...


the difference is though, if you hit some with a Speedo light, they go down and stay down!


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