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Godox AD-1200 1200W Portable Flash Head with car battery

Started Jun 8, 2019 | Discussions thread
mawyatt2002
mawyatt2002 Contributing Member • Posts: 502
Re: Godox AD-1200 1200W Portable Flash Head with car battery

Interesting idea, but as mentioned above the flash heads need very high voltage and high dynamic currents (low average but very high dynamic). However, I would think that if you are willing to sacrifice a AD600 battery you could open the pack and wire in a heavy gauge wire with a proper connector for a car battery connection, this is not the usual 12 volt car plug since the current demand will likely exceed 20A when the AD600 is recharging for another flash. Of course you are using the AD600 base units and not just the remote flash heads.

Another option would be to constantly recharge the AD600 battery from the car battery, this wouldn't require the high current demand and could be done externally to the AD600 battery without modification by using an external DC to DC converter to replace the AD600 charger. The AD600 charger is rated for 12.6 V at 3.3A, so one possibly could configure an DC to DC converter with proper current limit to allow connection to a car battery. You might be able to modify the AD600 charger to work from a car battery also.

The simplest option is to use a ~200 watt AC inverter to power the AD600 charger, or a much larger inverter (1000 to 2000 watt) to power the AD600 120VAC Power Supply Module. Sometimes these inverters don't like these kind of load (tend to have negative input impedance characteristic). I found this to be the case many years ago attempting to power some AC strobes with an AC inverter, and ended up having to "load" the inverter with a 100W incandescence bulb to get things to work..

Anyway, be extremely careful when dealing with these concepts. If you aren't an experienced Electrical Engineer in this field, I wouldn't attempt doing anything inside the AD600 battery, and certainly not inside the AD600 charger or strobe where lethal voltages are present.

The safest approach is the simple option mentioned with the AC inverter.

Best,

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