Car Power Solutions

[Carlos Garcia D]

Hi all,

 

I am designing the lighting of an int.car.day of an upcoming shoot, and this time I want to make sure it works. In the past, I have used power inverters out of the car 12v dc... with not very good results: I was successful to light one out of the two bulbs on a 2 ft 2 bank kino flo, for maybe a minute before it started flickering :ph34r:

 

Kino reccomends a pure sine wave inverter, does that mean something like this would be reliable to power a 4ft 4 bank?

 

http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/72-8...ELAID=220584740

 

I also hear great things around the forum about the parabeam 400, which also needs less power... would I be safer going this direction then?

 

And lastly, (i promise) the other option I have researched is go off a different, external 12v battery, or even a few wired in series... Not sure exactly how to make this happen, but I would love to find out more about it!

 

I thank you all in advance for the help!

 

Carlos

[Mathew Rudenberg]

Hi all,

 

I am designing the lighting of an int.car.day of an upcoming shoot, and this time I want to make sure it works. In the past, I have used power inverters out of the car 12v dc... with not very good results: I was successful to light one out of the two bulbs on a 2 ft 2 bank kino flo, for maybe a minute before it started flickering :ph34r:

 

Kino reccomends a pure sine wave inverter, does that mean something like this would be reliable to power a 4ft 4 bank?

 

http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/72-8...ELAID=220584740

 

I also hear great things around the forum about the parabeam 400, which also needs less power... would I be safer going this direction then?

 

And lastly, (i promise) the other option I have researched is go off a different, external 12v battery, or even a few wired in series... Not sure exactly how to make this happen, but I would love to find out more about it!

 

I thank you all in advance for the help!

 

Carlos

 

If you're going to use the car battery make sure to wire straight to the terminals. The cigarette lighter has a fuse that will blow if you pull more than a small amount of power.

 

It's been a while, but I recall getting 3 globes 4' or 4 globes 2' to work off a car battery. For digital car int during the day it was about as useful as pissing in the sea...

 

I wouldn't recommend that parabeam because it's supposed to throw light far, which doesn't seem very useful in a car.

 

I think LEDs would be a good solution for this, they're tough, their batteries last a while, and they put out a decent amount of light up close. I'm not a big LED fan in general, but for battery powered applications they're pretty reliable even if their color is sometimes a little off.

[Ryan Thomas]

I think LEDs would be a good solution for this, they're tough, their batteries last a while, and they put out a decent amount of light up close. I'm not a big LED fan in general, but for battery powered applications they're pretty reliable even if their color is sometimes a little off.

 

Yeah, one of those little LED lights that's meant to mount on top of the camera seems like it would be a great solution....I did a shoot a while ago where we powered two 4x4 kino's off of an 800 watt inverter that was connected straight to the terminals. So...you can definitely get those kino's to strike, but how much they'll do is another thing.

[James Brown]

Hi,

 

Rosco - Click Me - Cheap and punchy

 

Light Panel - Click me - Not as cheap - more punchy and IMO a better and more controllable quality of light.

 

In my experience these will give you enough punch for the face if you are shooting profiles and competing with the outside source. Remember, it's Natural to have inside about a stop down from the outside rather then try light it up completely.

 

Cheers, James.

[Carlos Garcia D]

Hey Guys,

 

Thanks a lot for all your replies! The one thing I wasnt too crazy about the LEDs last time i used them was yes, the color, and also a bit punchy. I felt like kinos give a bit more natural look, and i was ok with letting the outside get pretty bright... however the reliability of the power with the LEDs might drive it home, i can always diffuse them and make them more sutile anyway...

 

Thank you so much, I will post results!

 

Carlos

[Paul Bruening]

I've heard of this trick but never seen it. It does seem dubious.

 

Pull the trunk lid off the car and set a portable genny on something that will cut down on vibration like sound blankets. Get a scratch track and loop in post.

 

EDIT: Lash it in so it doesn't tump-over.

[John Sprung]

The other thing is to get a bunch of golf cart batteries and an inverter stashed in the trunk. We did that back when we were running tungsten lights, probably overkill for kino's and LED's.

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.