Battery generators

zeitghost

zeitghost

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Wondering if anyone has any recommendations of what to use for this:

Background: I have 4 lencarta smartflashes and have been renting studio space for the past 6 months in order to practise and do some product stuff (no space at home). I've now cleaned out my garage space and as this is going to waste thought that I could convert this into a small studio instead (its a pretty decent size garage - and I would save on the monthly studio rental).

Only problem is I have no electricity in there and no way of running cable to the garage. Therefore anyone got an idea of the best generators that I could use (needs to be portable so that I charge them in the house first) with my smartflashes and whether I then need any other cables to get this working as I currently just have the smartflash "kettle leads".

Any recommendations to products would be appreciated.

(nb my studio rental is currently about £800 pcm so anything around this price would be ok)
 
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The Innovatronix Explorer seem to get good reviews, although I haven't tried them myself.
 
zeitghost said:
Wondering if anyone has any recommendations of what to use for this:

Background: I have 4 lencarta smartflashes and have been renting studio space for the past 6 months in order to practise and do some product stuff (no space at home). I've now cleaned out my garage space and as this is going to waste thought that I could convert this into a small studio instead (its a pretty decent size garage - and I would save on the monthly studio rental).

Only problem is I have no electricity in there and no way of running cable to the garage. Therefore anyone got an idea of the best generators that I could use (needs to be portable so that I charge them in the house first) with my smartflashes and whether I then need any other cables to get this working as I currently just have the smartflash "kettle leads".

Any recommendations to products would be appreciated.

(nb my studio rental is currently about £800 pcm so anything around this price would be ok)
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Have you considered a Honda whisper generator? They really do run quiet and you could run a couple of fluorescent tubes to add a little light in there too ?

Alternatively sell your smart flask kit and buy two lencarta safari kits, I think the classics would suit you fine, buy one month and another the next

Scott
 
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Benfenech said:
The Innovatronix Explorer seem to get good reviews, although I haven't tried them myself.
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Yes, from The Flash Centre.

Petrol generators are generally a bad idea. They need a bit of poke to cope with the recharge peaks and the power isn't clean enough for most flash heads. Could even wreck them. And those Hondas a not cheap.
 
Thanks for these so far. THat Innovatronix explorer xt3 looks interesting and possibly would do what I need - not sure if the SE version would power 4 heads but the bigger version looks like it definately will. I'm not going to go down the petrol road as a) thought that the output needs to be sine wave and b) i would probably set fire to myself.

just realised I would get my deposit back as well from the rental sooo that would cover the cost of one of these and allow me to finish off the garage - I am guessing it will be big enough for the time being
 
I'm not being funny but would it not be worth getting a quote to actually see how expensive it would be to run electricity into the garage, I'm sure it wouldn't be that much more expensive the the size of generator you would need constantly supply a studio set up :thinking:

Matt
MWHCVT
 
MWHCVT said:
I'm not being funny but would it not be worth getting a quote to actually see how expensive it would be to run electricity into the garage, I'm sure it wouldn't be that much more expensive the the size of generator you would need constantly supply a studio set up :thinking:

Matt
MWHCVT
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:plusone:
£800 will buy you a reasonable amount of cable
 
Yeah that was the best idea but not possible really. Its a new house and the garage in a block of 4. Id either have to run cable through other peoples gardens or out onto the road. So sadly neither are viable which is why I rented the studio in the first place. Bit silly they never put electric in the garages... No idea how people see when theyve parked their car at night.
 
zeitghost said:
Thanks for these so far. THat Innovatronix explorer xt3 looks interesting and possibly would do what I need - not sure if the SE version would power 4 heads but the bigger version looks like it definately will. I'm not going to go down the petrol road as a) thought that the output needs to be sine wave and b) i would probably set fire to myself.

just realised I would get my deposit back as well from the rental sooo that would cover the cost of one of these and allow me to finish off the garage - I am guessing it will be big enough for the time being
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I can see the point about setting yourself on fire but the Honda EU20i pure sine wave genny is the business and the output is clean as a whistle as its been designed to run 'sensitive electrical equipment'. I have used the work one loads of times and it's fantastic but needs to be left outside which is not always convenient. :s

But if it was me I would go for the two lencarta pack option :)
 
I have the Innovatronix Explorer SE, i think its a great bit of kit.

Havent tried it with 4 heads though, would depend on how much power you wanted to use with each head as recycling times do suffer.

Here is a video of multiple strobes connected.

Multi-Strobe Tronix
 
Hi,

Get a UPS as its static in your garage and charge that off of the generator.

You can pull as much as you want off of the ups then whilst you have quiet time the generator will top the batteries backup.
 
Thanks for all the replies on this. I might have to rethink anyhow as measured the garage yesterday and its only 8 foot wide (no wonder i dont put the car in there) - feels way too cramped.

As my current studio has a mezzanine area (which i dont use at all) and a large skylight (which i cant block out and leaves in too much light). I may instead look for renting a smaller industrial unit which will work out cheaper hopefully than my current rent.
 
but the Honda EU20i pure sine wave genny is the business
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Yup.. I run 15 monitors, 2 servers 4 dyesub printers and a load of other minor kit from one of these most weekends.. I had mine converted to LPG so it'll run quite happily for 3-4 (10 hour) days on a 13KG propane bottle.

I've also used it for powering 4 x Elinchrom BX 500 heads without any issues.

It's the mutts nuts, but it ain't cheap.
 
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