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Re: portable power
Old 11-23-2005, 11:01 AM   #5 (permalink)
wgiles
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As Carlos said, it's not always that simple. There are two problems to be worked out. The first is power. Strobes don't use much power until they recharge. When they start to recharge, they can pull very high currents. Most household power is protected by circuit breakers, which can tolerate a high current for a short time. Some inverters have overcurrent protection, which means that they will reach a certain current and then hold that current until the load decreases. Others just blow fuses. Some of the strobe power packs have fast and slow recharge switches. This was so that they could be used in places with old wiring and fast fuses. The second issue is waveform. Most common inverters use a modified sine wave which has a lower peak voltage than a true sine wave. Some strobes depend on peak voltage to reach full power, some don't. The ones with voltage doublers and triplers do.

I have three inverters that I have used with strobes. One is a 300 watt true sine inverter that I have used with a Norlite 400 ws monolite. It works, but groans when I use the strobe at full power. I also have a 1000 watt and a 1500 watt modified sine wave inverter. I have a Norman 600 watt second monolite that will not work on the 300 or 100 watt inverters, but will on the 1500 watt inverter. The only problem is that the 1500 watt inverter is 24 volt and uses two huge trolling motor batteries.

There is no guarantee that any given strobe will work with any given inverter. If you have the resources, you have to be willing to experiment. I would suggest using cheap strobes.

Bill
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