Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

Hi All,

The FAQs have given me most of the info I was looking for regarding power consumption of PCB strobes but I am hunting for anybody's practical experience in a home setup. It says that each light will draw a peak of 16-18A for 200ms (called "well tolerated by most home circuits") but if I have 3 AB800s all recycling on the same circuit, I'm gonna trip something, right? My concern is this - I'm pretty sure that in the area I am designating the studio I have no more than two separate 15A circuits. I know this will be no problem managing the 3x 8A RMS (including modeling lights) but when I pop, I'm sure to trip a breaker, no? Or will home wiring "tolerate" ~48A for 200ms? (I'm gonna say no.)

Cheers,

John

You will probably be fine. Circuit breakers and fuses do not act instantaneously and will likely ride through the recycle without an issue. In my house I can run two Einsteins and an ABR 800 off a single 15 A circuit.

Also, I don't think your 8 amp RMS number is right... each light will draw 1-2 amps when not recycling (depending on the model lamp setting) and an average of 6 amps during recycle with the brief peak that you mentioned of 17 amps or so.

Happy Shooting :P

If you fire the lights absolutely as soon as they recycle, with modeling lamps on full power continuously, each light will draw about 7A RMS. Thus 3 lights will draw about 21A RMS. This will take a typical 15A household breaker about 15 minutes to 1 hour to break.

Perfect. Thanks, guys! You've set my mind at ease. Now, time to spend some money...