Battery-powered fluorescents

pmark23

pmark23

Veteran
Anyone tried running fluorescents from an inverter?

We'll be doing a couple corporates for two mining companies, and some of the footage will be underground.

I've done these before with battery-powered halogens, but the batteries run down too quickly -- I could only get a few minutes of useful footage before having to resurface to recharge the batteries. There's no power underground (unless you can run lights from air hoses!), and it's dark. Very, very dark. To make matters worse, the surfaces are all black. The only "good" point is that everything is wet, so there's a bit of reflection.

I have some 40W compact daylight fluorescent fixtures, and would like to try these underground running off of an inverter.

Will this work without flicker problems? Will I lose a lot of efficiency from the inverter -- enough to make me want to stick with 12V halogens?
 
Depends on the inverter. You need one that simulates a sine wave; cheaper inverters have more of a square wave to the power, which can cause problems. I tried running some fluo's off of a Coleman 1200 inverter, and the ballast buzzed like a swarm of bees. Run the same lights off of a Honda inverter generator (where they took extra care to closely simulate a sine wave) and they'll work fine.
 
Yes, if you get an inverter it should be a true sine wave inverter and not a modified sine wave inverter or square wave which they really don't make anymore.
 
Walter_Graff said:
Inverters work perfectly fine with florescents.
Click to expand...


Yes.. I actually shot an film like this in the woods. With an inverter you can run a 4x4 fluro for hours and hours and hours off your battery. I bought a deep cell marine battery that ran 2 2x4' banks for about 5 hours, then I switched to the car battery, just had to start the car up every hour or so to keep the battery up.

Works very well.
 
Jarred Land said:
I bought a deep cell marine battery that ran 2 2x4' banks for about 5 hours...QUOTE]


I definitely want to be able to use this setup, is there any particular brand or specs for the marine batteries and inverters? I presume you could wire two or more batteries and power some tungstens as well, no?
Click to expand...
 
In my search for this information, through Google I found lots of setup tips for running fluorescents from banks of batteries. I just did a quick search but couldn't find the site again -- but there's a lot out there. Most of them are focuses on emergency lighting.
 
Yeah, I've done a lot of searching as well, most of what I found was lighting houses and the fact that they rent inverters and marine batteries, so, apparently it's relatively common. I guess I could write to the local grip house here in Seattle and see what they have to say. I was hoping to get some feedback from people in the DV/film arena. If you do happen to stumble across (google) any tutorials that are deep cycle battery based film lighting specific, please pass it on.

There was a nice thread on 'Low Budget Lighting' over on dvinfo where I posted a similar question ( http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=19944 ), but perhaps not many people go the battery route as I never got any feedback, I guess most use generators or don't stray too far from a power source?

Well, maybe I'll post a specific thread asking for feedback on battery powered tips, techniques, and experiences as this thread was not specific to my questions.

Thx!
 
In the spot I linked below, I used a 55 watt tube to pick up the interior using nothing more than a 100 watt inverter, no flicker, hum or anything else. ANd I also powered a 500 watt Omni on the hood. I have yet to have such a problem with flouros and an inverter. As for batteries deep cycles will give you your best load but then again 12 volts is mighty dangerous and probably why most folks don't use batteries but generators.

http://www.bluesky-web.com/balise.mov
 
Don't mean to digress, but where in the interior did you place the 55w, and the omni on the hood, that served what purpose? Sorry if it's obvious upon viewing, but I wasn't sure.

"but then again 12 volts is mighty dangerous and probably why most folks don't use batteries but generators"

That's not a minor detail, one that I overlooked, and given the hectic nature of some shoots, adding another level of danger where carelessness could cause a problem... I guess that's why a number of people appear to have these kinds of units packaged up in additional protection with the wiring and connectors well protected.
 
i was shooting on a bright day and wanted it natural but needed a bit more light inside. The Omni is mounted on a pigeon plate that is fastened to a board on the hood. The flouro is just out of eye line below the dash. Car batteries are dangerous. They can produce hundreds of amps of DC and can cut your hand off with an arc.
 
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