Vivitar 285 HV DIY External Battery Pack Test

MAKE a battery pack. WATCH it in action.
http://www.comatosed.ca/writing/writing/reviews/DIY_Vivitar_285_HV_Battery_Pa...

Vivitar 285 HV DIY External Batter Pack Test.

See how the Vivitar 285 HV performs using an external lead acid battery vs standard 2000 nmh rechargeable batteries.

Conclusions: Way faster recycling times and substantially longer battery life using the external battery.

Learn how to make the Vivitar 285 HV battery pack here:
www.comatosed.ca

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• Vivitar
• 285
• HV
• External
• Battery
• Pack
• DIY
• Do It Yourself
• Power
• Instructions
• Guide
• Tutorial

[kungamord]

This is not a HV pack. HV stands for HIGH VOLTAGE! This is just ordinary 6V, only difference is that the amperage is slightly higher for SLAs and that you have a higher capacity. With a real HV pack you can load fully after 1/1 in less than 2 secs.

[comatosed]

@kungamord That's good to know. So how do you go about getting an HV pack? How may volts/amps would it be?

[h2oreactor]

This is misleading, it all depends on the Discharge Rate of a Battery. It does't mean that if its external, it will be better.

[comatosed]

@h2oreactor Discharge discrepancies or not - the purpose of this video was to illustrate the difference between common AA rechargeables and the given 6v battery pack. It clearly shows that the battery pack resulted in faster recycling times.

[phatbieu]

it's misleading completely. You can fire with even 3 but it's not a full power firing! (at least can't verify here). I can just buy a portable acid led batt from Lowes and other local stores and do it!

[comatosed]

@phatbieu I'm not implying that it is faster because it is external, I'm saying a 6v lead acid battery (internal or external) results in faster recycling times.

[h2oreactor]

@kungamord, the HV in the title is the part of the model of the flash unit ... 285HV.

You can easily increase charging rate by getting the same battery unit and run them in parallel to give out more amps. we do that all the time, make it 3 parallel 6v, and see quickly the flash charge up. I even use that pack attached to 3 flash head units, just use thicker wires of couse. its all about common sense.

[kungamord]

@comatosed google armatar flash if you wanna see what kind of mods I'm talking about.

[kungamord]

@comatosed Hello, I made one myself based on the TL494 chip and a transformer coil from an old ATX-psu, I also used some power mosfets. I feed it with a 12 V sla and get about 360 V out of it, I feed the caps in the flash directly and get a recycle time of about 5 secs on 1/1, but I have added two more caps to the flash and replaced the tube with a norman style bulb so I'm somewhere around 300 W-s.

Lumedyne, quantum and some chinese brands do powerpacks if you don't have the skills to DIY one.

[comatosed]

@phatbieu No problem, thanks for clearing that up. Cheers, G

[phatbieu]

my apology for previous post, i what another video similar to this one by a seller claiming that their ext. power can fire fast. You can do like this guy with much lower cost