FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Do you have blinking lights or a fuel gauge?
No, two things make no sense to me. Man's fascination with blinking lights and LEDS. I don't use blinking lights to indicate when the unit is running low because they don't really work, that's why. They are comparators not gauges. You can't predict whats left because you can't predict usage quantity. It's a gimmick.
Claims have been made LEDS don't draw power, but if you look inside, whats all that other stuff for? Added value, no, they require a lot of electronics that can fail, require tuning or updating, to make all that stuff work. Did you know that 99.9 percent of cars that ran out of gas had a working fuel gauge? The Sealed Lead Acid battery has a flat power curve, basically they remain the same till exhausted.
What makes your pack better?
We use state of the art SEALED LEAD ACID fireproof batteries and a much improved, actually a full one amp variable rate charger with safety controls built in. SLA Batteries are bigger and slightly heavier than Ni-MH.
• They lasts longer, with no maintenance, no calibration, and sits at 100% indefinitely. • It's less expensive per amp hour, bigger capacities. In a pack less chance of leaking. No heat transfer or buildup: Many packs go bad after two three years. It's simple, we chose basic lead acid battery technology because it has been has been around the longest of the chemistries. No electronics in the battery compartment. Batteries that can go to 130 degrees when charging and discharging. Hold the four NiMH in your hand after a busy shoot if you can.
• The charging circuit is not located in the battery. Every day about 80 million cars start on SEALED LEAD ACID BATTERIES. It's a proven chemistry.
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What makes your chargers better?
OUR CHARGER is a regulated two stage charger. "A-C" series chargers are new "switching" type devices which operate without the use of transformers. I.C.'s control and regulate current and voltage and automatically switch from the higher fast charge voltage to the lower float voltage when batteries are very close to being fully charged.
At the float voltage it is safe to leave the battery connected to the charger indefinitely, making charging pretty much fool-proof. Our chargers have circuitry that is set for the maximum allowable charge voltage, but has a current limit to control the initial absorption current and it produces a very nice charge.
How fast is your pack?
How fast is your pack? For me it blazes, but I know how to shoot and I can set my cameras to do anything. I also control what I'm shooting, I do not go into panic mode.
Speed kills literally, ask any machine gunner. I do not gear nor promote the packs I build for speed. It is not my main selling point, as it was with two companies no longer in business. They bothclaimed speed was the answer till a lot (and I mean triple digit) Canon 580 blew sky high.
The packs I build are very fast, have a consistent output and easily serviceable and adaptable with a long shelf life. . I build for longer shoots and longer life. Thats the purpose of a pack. Ask your lover if she wants you faster.
In a nutshell, here is my mantra: I build them for LONGEVITY, Low-cost of operation, with large capacity batteries and I will tell you you can easily get faster units, higher in voltage, with corresponding costs and the frequency you will replace your flash units with.
Speed comes from over-clocking, basically feeding higher voltage into a flash the manufacturer built certain safety limits into, to keep your flash, the part he is liable for, working as long as possible to make you a happy camper. But when over-clocking and added batteries create heat, that sends the whole flash into another dimension.
How do I get the max speed from your pack?
My pack will keep up with the others based on partial power settings. Thats the tricks pros use, manual and partial power settings. The Oscars are done that way. Full pops slow any strobe down and deplete or waste dump valuable energy.
Because the capacitor has to recharge a full discharge. And if you are not overly qualified and you rely on the I-E-D-TTL for your world to work, or haven't gotten past the "P" mode in your career expect slower times as the flash and camera have to talk to each other and that sets up delays for the two to work together.
An accelerated pack will recycle faster but will give you far less shots. Because they are keeping the energy going recycling the second flyback transformer or capacitor. They also require using internal NiMH batteries for the units controller so you are right back where you started except 450-600 dollars poorer.
Accelerated packs will eventually shorten flash life. A flash can only operate at max for a while before there is trade off. You trade off your money for a new one. With the rash of burnt units out there from too frequent a shooting and finally the unit overheats, you pay for the speed twice. This drove Nikon to put heat sensors in the 900.
How do you tell when flashes have been overused?
Simple, just look for a yellowing of the clear plastic. Only older Vivitar's and Metz's had a warming color coating on the plastic. If you see a newer model with yellow tinge and a sticky feel, it is from overheating. That's a strobe with severe old age problems. Pass on it and buy a new one.
Speed is attained by accelerating the 8 volt to 12 volt battery clusters in packs and using a fly back transformer or use another capacitor larger than yours externally. They then reroute and use the AC port direct to the capacitor. This results in faster shooting but you might be well damaging the strobe. If it's a Canon, a toasted strobe, those nasty trace burns really become apparent to the repair guy and on Nikon's, the yellowing of the flashtube and in some cases melting the plastic.
The small but powerful strobes such as the SB-800 and the Canon 580EX and EXII are basically pushing the electronics to the hilt and the accelerated packs push them over the cliff. Just shooting too quick can do the same, the Nikon 900 has a shutdown mode if overheated or accelerated and will cause the heat meter to prevent a shot.
Do you need AA cells in the Flash with your packs?
No. Here is another "makes no sense" we see all the time. With accelerated packs you still need the strobe to be powered for the LCD screen or power to the camera for messaging. These units still require the use of four AA cells to make the unit work, so now you have two battery sources to consider. A pack and AA cells. Both creating heat (NiMH cap at 130 F) in that little space. One of those AA cells goes bad and you are dead in the water. Risk increased by a factor of five.
With accelerated packs you have by-passed some of the safety mechanisms. I truly believe based on size measurements and a little research both Nikon and Canon have pushed their best selling units to the end of the power curve. "Sort of tweaked to the nines". Making the strobes bigger means potential size and hotshoe problems and smaller is whats happening today.
The manufacturer and you are bonded!
Warrantee wise the way Nikon and Canon look at it, anything else plugged into this external port voids their responsibility. If you make a volcano out of your strobe, it's your headache. After Warranty time runs out you are on your own. The use of anything other than their specific brand especially through the AC input on the Nikon SB-800, the Canon 550-580 series and the METZ 54 series is easily detected on a repair bench. Just look for burn "traces" at the in port.
So if you happen to torch your strobe by an accelerated speed product, with an accelerated trigger finger, this happens every day, the manufacturers can tell in a heartbeat what zonked the strobe. You can't hide burn traces in a specific location. As one person stated; "the fastest strobes can recycle in 0.9 and other promises 1.3 seconds". That's fast, very fast. BUT. If they blow, that speed is reduced to slow, very slow, like eternity...
But with a Turbo I can run my camera on the same pack!
This is my favorite dumb idea. Listen to the formuron (short for forum moron) who tells you it's Ok to run both your camera and your flash from the same battery pack.. after all you read it on a forum, it has to be true. Right. Lets get sane here. The formuron who suggested it to you or doing it will not have to pay if you destroy your Nikon D3. You will, however find out Nikon will charge YOU for blowing it up.
You have a whopping 330 volts from a capacitor coming out of a wire less than 20 gauge going to a capacitor pulling or sucking it in right next to a line going with 12 volts to your $4000.00 camera. And if you expect cheap third world electronics to protect that resource, you are nuts.
Whats the bottom line?
If you value your money and the products you buy, carefully evaluate information you receive. otherwise continue to buy Brooklyn Bridge stock and believe everything on FOX news. There are tons of incorrect rumors and gossip, misconceptions and sometimes downright stupid things on websites and forums. Do this before you explode what you haven't finished paying for.
There are some good sites, some really great folks who will guide you as a beginner, but many of the pros are either making money SHOOTING, TEACHING, DOING SOMETHING in the INDUSTRY, and aren't playing "Dear Abby" on a forum other than as we have seen in the past to promote their own agendas and the CD's they just happen to sell or a seminar they just happen to be teaching at the "convention" they just happened to of signed up for.