Portable Power Source for Lighting
by Kinzilla
on
Mar 29, 2006 at 11:22:14 pm
Has anyone heard of a portable power source, other than a generator, that can power a two/three light set up (omni/tota - 500s)? I've found no commercial options thus far. Do I have to go into the garage to build Batteryzilla? Thank you all knowing lighting wizards!
Re: Portable Power Source for Lighting by Frank Otto on Mar 30, 2006 at 5:06:08 pm
[Kinzilla]"Do I have to go into the garage to build Batteryzilla?"
Yes...unless you've got the big bucks for a solar array. Then you're back to not being portable. There are commercial alternatives to the home brew unit - but they're not cheap.
Seriously - MCL had a cart I built for E.N.G. use that had 4 12vdc/120amp Marine batteries, and 2 2000w. (1750w. actual) Triplite(c) solid state inverters (designed for communications systems - filtered ac output).
Each inverter had a quad box attached to the cart for distro. Cart was a modified vertical hand truck with a vented enclosure on the base/tongue for the batteries - charger and inverters were mounted via rack rails welded to the cart frame and a marine switchover was wired to the system for the charger and to use the rack as a distro for ac/shore power when charging.
A marine shore power t.l. connector fed ac - one of two 50' ac cable ran power, one with a pbg connector, the other just tails. Overkill - yes, but it was designed to work for many odd situation, including being strapped to the top of a van, back of a truck, helicopter mounted or on a boat.
We ran up to 4 500w. lights (2 per inverter) and the occasional 1k pan - sometimes a microwave hop was part of the rig.
Total available output was around 3200w. with a full load running time of aprox. 4 hours continuous.
I believe you can do it simpler and for less. Our cost in 1979 dollars was around 800.00 for batteries, 600.00 for the inverters and around 200.00 for the hand truck and modifications. Conversly, the ENG Corp sold one that had half the output for around 2500.00
