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Author
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Topic: Power for Lights
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jackass
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posted 11-26-2000 10:30 PM
Okay, we just bought some 500 watt worklights from Home Depot. These are great and all for indoor use but I also need to use them outside, away from any power outlet. How could I get powe. Mind you, we are cheep bastards and are willing to inprovise anything.Thanks in advance,
Jamaal www.Jackassery.com |
Gamecat
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posted 11-26-2000 11:16 PM
rent a generator |
Vision Productions
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posted 11-27-2000 02:32 AM
or even better buy a generator! Or have a friend who's dad owns an ace hardware handy like I do! |
jackass
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posted 11-27-2000 04:34 PM
Generators are kind of expensive. Is there any other way?-Jamaal |
dstepson
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posted 11-27-2000 04:52 PM
If you can get a car close to where yoiu are shooting you can use an adapter from the cigarette lighter. You can get one at Radio Shack pretty cheap. |
jackass
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posted 11-28-2000 12:16 AM
Is there any way we can rig up a car battery. What we really need is something that we can carry in a backpack anywhere.-Jamaal |
Erik S
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posted 11-28-2000 06:07 PM
You'll drain a car battery pretty quick using those lights unless the car is running. I'd go with a generator. You wont need a big one. You can rent them for somewhere around $30-50 bucks a weekend. No big deal. |
ADOM
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posted 12-08-2000 03:06 AM
I had real bad luck with those Radio Shack adapters. My 500 watt lights blew fuses on three cars and we got about 60 seconds of total light. I finally wound up using 400 feet of extension cords. You'll need about 200 feet just to get far enough from the generator if you go that route. Those things can get pretty loud.If you know anyone with a conversion van or RV lots of those have generators, not to mention make shooting in the great outdoors more bearable. Good Luck
ADOM |
Gamecat
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posted 12-08-2000 07:45 AM
Yeah if you do get a generator, try and dig a pit where you can put the generator. It will muffle the noise a bit. |
8ride
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posted 12-10-2000 01:45 PM
You could get a power converter from walmart for $40 cdn but its going to kill your battery unless you have more than one battery or a deep cycle battery (approx $200 cdn). Better off just using the vehicles brights. |
Actor
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posted 12-10-2000 03:47 PM
- A generator is your best bet, rented or purchased. It will give you as much power as you need, where you need it.
- I don't think you're going to find a power converter that will handle 500 watts continuous. If you do it will not be cheap. Radio Shack has one that will handle 220 watts for $150 US. You would need three. I would recommend against hooking them up in parallel without some kind of protective diode network. Better to go with three different 150-200 watt lights.
How many amp-hours is your battery? 500 watts would require a 40 amp-hour battery to last for 1 hour and that doesn't take losses in the system into account. What is the charging capacity of the alternator in the vehicle? Can it keep up. If it can't then you'd better have a separate battery to drive home on. If it can keep up don't expect it to do so at idle. You'll need someone in the car to keep the engine revved. If you go for a total loss system the color temp of the lights will change as the battery runs down. Even if you use the vehicle alternator to keep it charged I would expect the color temp to vary during the shoot. - Ten twelve volt batteries in series would give you about 130 volts DC at the beginning of the shoot and should last several hours @ 500 watts. Since the lights are incandescent it should work. You should use deep discharge marine batteries. But for what 10 batteries would set you back I'd look into buying a generator first.
Be careful. 130 volts is serious voltage even if it is DC. The problem of shifting color temp as the batteries discharge remains.
[This message has been edited by Actor (edited 12-10-2000).] |
ntprod
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posted 12-11-2000 08:44 PM
Indoor lights outdoor? Wouldnīt recommend it. Itīs very dangerous and donīt even think about it if itīs wet outside. |
ADOM
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posted 12-13-2000 06:05 AM
If your only choice is to run off the car batteries I'd go with a different type of light. They won't cover the same area, but those off-road spotlights that you can get for $19.99 are rechargeable, and when they run down, most will plug into your lighter socket. They are spotlights, though, not floods, so plan on a lot of close up work and maybe do as suggested above and fill in the backlight with some well aimed high beams.Good Luck ADOM PS Shooting day-for-night is always an option too. |
jackass
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posted 12-14-2000 05:13 PM
ADOM can you elaborate more about those lights. |
lyvewyer
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posted 12-14-2000 10:19 PM
what you could do is try to get ahold of a solar generator, and then plug in your lights to it. then, start the juice flowing with a flashlight or something, once the lights start up, just angle the panel so that they shed light on it. it would be an endless supply of power.------------------
"i dont feel the need to explain my art to you." -lucas, empire records if ignorance is bliss, why arent there more happy people? -unknown visit my site www.novicepictures.com
quote:
LOL! That's hilarious! Solar powered free energy.  Thanks. Jeff F
[This message has been edited by Jeff F (edited 01-02-2001).] |
jackass
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posted 12-15-2000 12:21 AM
Though on the surface the plan seems ok, there seems to be some fatal flaw which I cant seem find at the moment. |
ADOM
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posted 12-15-2000 04:46 AM
You usually find these lights in the auto section of a department store like Wal Mart. The measure brightness in candela power (some super huge number like 250,000 or 500,000). Their field of view is narrow, but the light is clean and white on video and throws a good distance. A fully charged one will usually burn for about 30 minutes (these might cost $29.99) and most can be plugged into the cigarette lighter of a car and run fine. Two or three of these and some high beams can really help in those out of the way places.ADOM PS You can also find them in catalogs like THE SPORTSMAN GUIDE (sportsmanguide.com...I think) |
jackass
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posted 12-15-2000 04:28 PM
Thanks ADOM I think I will check those out later today. |
Fastlou
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posted 12-16-2000 02:18 PM
Hey everyone. I've been reading these boards for a few weeks, waiting for something to contribute for my first post.Jackass - the reason that it wouldn't work to power a solar panel off of lights you are running from the solar panel is that the amount of energy the panel generates is far less than the light uses up. Has something to do with teh 2nd law of thermodynamics - in converting and storing the energy in the solar cells you lose some (mostly as heat), and in shinging the light on the panel you lose more, so you are always spending more than you would get back. |
Fastlou
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posted 12-16-2000 04:05 PM
On something actually regarding the lighting issue... do any of you guys have experience with using battery belts for either mics, or lights, or whatever? From what I've read most have some sort of cigarette lighter output and you can get an adapter to plug that into the camera, light, mixer, etc. I'm thinking that might be the way to go for me (mobil out in the woods) but wanted to see if anybody had experience or recommendations on brands or anything. Thanks, Jym |
ADOM
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posted 12-16-2000 11:16 PM
From my past battery belt experience I remember them not too long with lights (maybe 30 minutes as opposed to 2 hrs with a camera and so on) and the lights they can power were limited. Battery packs have come a long though. Check bhphoto.com for battery brands and power ranges and if you have a Batteries Plus store near you go in and talk to them. The will custom make you a rechargeable system to power what you need if you have the money.ADOM |
Sarge
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posted 12-26-2000 10:00 AM
We've been looking into location lighting, too. Those 500 W lamps you bought are probably AC, which means wall sockets. For outside lighting, you'll want DC lighting (battery powered). Part of the problem with using lead-acid (car) batteries to power the lights, is that they fade fast, which changes the color temperature, which means white-balancing every shot, or even in the middle of a shot. And the fading will affect how much light actually gets reflected off your subject, and into the camera, so that you wind up with gamma corrections that you didn't anticipate.
Having said that, 12V lights ARE pretty darned good - they're sometimes called PAR lights - with a proper power supply. They're light and easily portable and can give you a pretty good lighting setup with barn doors and some black foil.
Renting a generator is about the only reliable way to power location lighting, though. Camera belts and cans won't give you much time, although they will give you stable lighting until they fail.
Remember not to push the generator. It will have several numbers attached to the instructions or decaled on the machine. Don't be impressed by the start-up or no load values. They aren't applicable for lighting.
Finally, there are a whole slew of very small, gasoline powered motors out there. Try hooking one to a DC generator from your Dad's Buick, and powering up. No guarantees, but the one time I tried to cobble one together, I got current flow. And then, blew the motor.Sarge |
SFE
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posted 12-28-2000 11:32 PM
Jackass If you get those spotlights like adom is talking about.You might want to give a call to a game warden in the area where you will be shooting them. I was taking some photographs with a friend one time using a spotlight at night and nearly got arrested for spotlighting dear. I had to explain to a police officer for twenty minutes that we were taking pictures. |
SlipperyGlue
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posted 01-02-2001 03:49 AM
lyvewyer had a good idea.... only problem is that he would have been using a SOLAR generator. Incondecent lights arent quite the thing SOLAR generators like to run off of. Neither are flashlights. Besides, that would have to be one hell of a flashlight!Since we have talked about generators and car batteries.. and we want to save money by sticking with the lights that you already baught.... Heck, if your gonna need that much light ... why not just do a day for night shot like said above? |
