Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

I apologize for this if it has been covered before, but I have spent some time searching in vein.

I have purchased an Alien Bee B800 strobe and would like some advice on the wattage an inverter should have to recharge the capacitor in the field from a 12 VDC battery. Would a 120VAC/1000Watt inverter work for this purpose given the 18 amp momentary current?

Chicago.John

OK... I just answered my own question.... the next generation Vagabond Li-ion solution is what I will get come November. Perfect.

I should have done more research on the White Lightning and Alien Bee websites....

The Vagabond Mini will be your best bet. However, to answer the question, there is not righ answer to the wattage of the inverter. Higher wattage inverters can recycle faster (up to a lights normal recycle time). Even higher wattage models can recycle multiple lights faster (up to the normal recycle times) Lower wattage inverters will recycle slower, but will still fully recycle them.

What you would need to look for is Pure Sine Wave inverters that are Current Limiting (though the second parameter is rarely specified). Pure sine wave so your light gets clean power (vs. modified or square wave inverters found in hardware and "Wal-Mart" type stores, which can overheat components, resulting in premature failure). The current limiting allows the inverter to drop voltage during the peak draw rather than shut off.

Thanks for the explanation. After spending some time looking at related internet blogs, I had pretty much come to the same conclusion: Considering the cost of a good, true sine wave inverter, current limited, of sufficient maximum wattage, and the cost, weight, and recharging issues associated with a lead acid battery, I concluded that the Vagabond Mini would be the best alternative, especially since Paul C. Buff Inc. says it is fully compatible.

The sales folks told me it could recharge an x1600 capacitor 400 times on a full battery charge, and has an interim "trickle" charger from the car cigarette lighter outlet. So, even if it were 1/4 of that capacity it would be awesome for my purposes. And it will handle three lights simultaneously. To me, that sounds like a great value proposition relative to alternatives. (Let me know if the sales folks were way off the mark ;-)

That's right on. Just note, three lights will take three times as long to recycle as one light will (assuming all are at the same output setting).

Follow-up question on the Vagabond Mini -- What is the maximum current it will generate in the 110-120VAC range; i.e., withoug dropping below 110VAC? I am just wondering if, within the AH limits, it could also be used to, say, recharge a cell phone or operate a netbook computer.

it will be a 120W inverter. You can expect about 90 watt hours from a fully charged battery.