Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

I was a little sceptical about trying to use my Vagabond Mini with another manufacturer's brand of flash. Along with my AlienBee B800s, I have a set of Photogenic Studio Max III's AC/DC flash heads. They can be powered by exernal batteries like the Photogenic AKB-1 battery, or the Quantum Turbo.

My Quantum Turbo is in the shop right now, so I decided to give the Vagabond Mini's a shot. Everything worked without a hitch(so far), I was able to get about 100 shots at 1/2 power without even making a dent on the charge. Recycle was about 1 second or less. This is fantastic since the DC batteries tend to be a bit unreliable and the recycle time gets longer when the battery starts winding down . Especially the Photogenic battery.

I'm not recomending that you try this with your equipment, but I did read somewhere that the original Vagabond was compatible with the Pphotogenics. This is why I decided to try it with the Mini's. You might obtain different results with your equipment and remember stuff like this is not covered under the warranty agreement.

The "AC/DC" designation on these lights types is a bit deceiving. They don't run from 12VDC as is often implied. The DC portion is actually a 300V connection to the flash capacitors, like a Vivitar HV flash, and requires a multi hundred dollar "Speed cycler", which is in fact 12V battery plus 12V to 300V converter, much how Vagabond converts 12VDC into 120VAC or 230VAC.

These speed cyclers are expensive and have nowhere near the capacity or speed of VML and are limited to the single function of powering one specialized light unit per cycler. A single VML can power several monolights at the same time, at much higher WS per second than speed cyclers.

So, in my obviously biased opinion, powering such lights via their 120VAC input with VML is far more practical, faster and more cost effective.

Just like Quantum cannot guarantee their speed cycler can operate a Photogenic "AC/DC" light, we cannot absolutely guarantee a Vagabond can successfully power every single monolight on the market. In most cases, it can.

We have had many reports (and some internal experiments) that show other brands will work. Of course, we cannot warranty your other brand lights, but we will warranty our packs. Also, since there is 120V and 230V versions of the packs, a 120V head/pack test does not automatically assume a 230V pairing will work. The same thing for a dual voltage head on a 120V pack vs. a 230V pack. As well, a flash unit may work fine, but if there is a digital radio remote built in, it may or may not function correctly.