Damaging strobe power supply with unused outlets?

[Firefly Berlin]

Hi Folks,


I have a question: does it damage a power supply if it does only "fire" 2 instead of 4 lightheads?


Exact problem: I have a Whelen Edge LFL with 2 LFL412 power supplys, one firing the 4 corners, the other currently 4 linear strobes.


After the upgrade of the bar it will only have 2 linear strobeheads, will this damage the power supply, or is this no problem?


Thanks for your answers!

 

[Jeremy0966]

Hi Folks,

I have a question: does it damage a power supply if it does only "fire" 2 instead of 4 lightheads?


Exact problem: I have a Whelen Edge LFL with 2 LFL412 power supplys, one firing the 4 corners, the other currently 4 linear strobes.


After the upgrade of the bar it will only have 2 linear strobeheads, will this damage the power supply, or is this no problem?


Thanks for your answers!

No, it will not damage the power supply. The power supplies are designed to be plug and play filling any number of ports the user desires. Be that one or all ports does not hurt the power supply at all. The only thing you might notice is the 2 light heads connected to the power supply will be a bit brighter since its only powering two strobes opposed to four. I for instance use a Whelen CSP690, 6 head, 90 watt power supply and only have four of the six ports used. So 90 watts is being divided among four strobes instead of all six. Hope this helps

 

[Zoe]

Isn't this what a "Regulated" power supply is all about?


A 90watt 6 head supply for instance would give 15watts per head.


But if you connected just one head, a regulated supply would give it 15watts whereas an non-regulated supply would give it the full 90, the subsequently blow the fuse...


Sorry if I've got that wrong... it's been a while.

 

[chief1562]

No. I talked to FS about a silver series 90w supply I have with 4 outlets and told them I was only using 2. And they said it was alright and that by using 2 i was spliting it so it would be 45w per head.

 

[Shawn L]

most older power supplies are unregulated, like your federal, and say a sps600 Whelen, 45 watts per head is a lot. IIRC max to a hideaway tube is 23 watts . if your pushing 45 watts to a hideaway your going to shorten the bulb life and cause some serious heat issues, now if your using a larger linear tube in say a 600 or 900 head your going to be ok.

 

[chief1562]

You aren't going to damage the power supply, but you might damage the strobes connected to it as Shawn mentioned.

An unregulated power supply splits the wattage among all of the connected heads based on resistance. A lower resistance light will get more wattage and therefore be brighter. Putting a low resistance strobe (e.g. hide-a-way) and a high resistance strobe (e.g. linear 900) together on an unregulated power supply will cause the hide-a-way to be very bright and have a shorter life and the linear strobe to be very dim.


A regulated power supply supplies a fixed wattage per head to all heads regardless of resistance. Regulated power supplies can either be regulated per head or per pair of heads. So you can have a 90 Watt 6 Head Regulated Supply that:


1) Delivers 15 Watts Per Output regardless of the number of connected outlets


or


2) Delivers 30 Watts Per PAIR of Outputs regardless of the number of connected outlets.


In this second situation you effectively a multiple unregulated power supplies within a larger regulated power supply. You can still have the problems listed for an unregulated power supply with this type of setup, but since most strobes are installed in pairs most problems can be avoided by installing the same type strobe on paired outputs so that that 30 Watts is split among a two strobes that have the same resistance. However, this isn't always as simple as it sounds, sometimes they are paired 1&2, 3&4, 5&6, sometimes 1&3, 2&4, 5&6, etc. You really have to take a close look at the manual.


As if things weren't complicated enough, there are what I will call Smart Power Supplies. These power supplies have the ability to turn down power based on having an open circuit (burnt out or disconnected strobe tube).


Lets say you have a 90 Watt 4 Outlet Supply that is regulated by PAIR to 45 Watts. If you have two HAWs connected each getting 22.5 Watts you are fine, but as soon as one blows out the other is getting the full 45 Watts of that output and you are going to have two blown out strobe tubes. To counter this problem, the Smart Supply Knocks the wattage down to 30 for that PAIR of outlets if only one is connected. This isn't regulated because the output wattage isn't fixed per outlet.


I hope this answers more questions than it causes.


-Jared

OH that's just great I can only put 2 haws in my caprice wagon because there's no room in the tail lights and all I have is 4 ans 6 outlet supplies.

 

[Firefly Berlin]

Thanks for your infos guys.


Only question for me: is the LFL412 a regulated or unregulated powersupply?