Out of morbid curiosity (and also because I really wanted to know), I set out to try and see how many full powered shots I could get out of my Porty Premium A/S with the CTC lithium battery equipped battery drawer.
The answer? A LOT!! :D I lost count somewhere around 100, but to be honest I just gave up trying to kill the battery.
I'm *SERIOUSLY* impressed and it takes a lot to impress me! The pack didn't flinch; I know there's obviously a limit to how many shots you can get out of the battery, but the battery gauge never dropped below 100% (which I expected because of how the lithium battery works). It also didn't just turn off either so there was plenty of gas still in the tank. After a while I was more afraid I was going to overheat my flash head before I found the limit of the battery.
So yeah, the battery isn't cheap (well... it's cheaper than the official Hensel unit), but it's worth every penny. I honestly figured it'd be on-par on the low end with the Sealed Lead-Acid (SLA) batteries I had been using but instead it blows them away. I knew my SLA's were getting "tired", but even when they were new they didn't perform this good!
Monday, July 20, 2015
Saturday, July 18, 2015
Losing weight the easy way
Back around 2009 I sold my Alien Bee lights and upgraded to some Hensel Porty Premiums (and one O.G. Hensel Porty) because of not only their superior performance but also because of their portability. I still do studio styled work but a lot more of my stuff has been on-location and/or required me to be able to transport my lighting around from place to place.
Technology has changed a lot since then though. Although the packs still kick ass, they've been eclipsed not only by Hensel themselves with newer battery technology but by other companies also. Hensel came out with the Porty Lithium series which cut a lot of weight off of the packs, and Alien Bees have since come out with not only their Einstein studio strobes but they've also come out with the Lithium based Vagabond portable power generator. In comparison the original Porty and Porty Premium packs feel like lead bricks because, well... there actually IS a lead brick inside of them. :) Let me tell you from experience that it ABSOLUTELY SUCKS lugging around a lead brick, especially when trudging through sand on a beach shoot. :D When I was in my late 20's/early 30's it wasn't that big of a deal. As I start my 40's I can definitely say that this getting old shit is starting to suck. :D
For a while now I've been contemplating trying to retrofit my Porty packs with Lithium batteries but on the surface it's not a straight forward or easy task. You not only have to worry about sourcing the lithium batteries, but you'd have to source a battery management board, AND you'd have to most likely replace the Hensel battery chargers too. After looking into it a few years ago I all but gave up on the idea.
Recently though my packs have been in need of new batteries. The batteries are getting up there in age; typically a lead-acid battery will only last six years max before it stops holding a significant charge. When that happens to the Hensel batteries it starts causing all sorts of weirdness with the packs themselves. No word of a lie here, my O.G. Porty (the one that has the battery in a trap door on the bottom, not the newer revision that has a battery tray like the Porty Premium) will turn itself on spontaneously when the battery starts going south. :D The Premium packs won't fire correctly, will shut off, etc. Until you figure out what's going on you start to think the packs themselves are damaged, but it's nothing more than a bad battery causing the problems.
So, knowing that I was going to need new batteries soon, I decided to look once more into the lithium route. Thankfully technology has progressed far enough where it's now possible to replace the SLA AGM batteries in the Hensel Porty Premium with lithium based batteries and it doesn't require any modification to the pack or chargers either.
Hensel themselves now make a Lithium battery for the Porty Premium, but at $685 it's not exactly "economical" ( http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/755807-REG/Hensel_1494_Battery_Drawer_with_Lithium.html ). Hell, to replaced the SLA battery in an existing Porty Premium battery tray with a genuine Hensel battery, it costs a little over $150 too ( http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/831176-REG/Hensel_4791_Battery_for_Porty_Premium.html ).
If you're like me though, you're frugal. You also know that the genuine Hensel SLA battery is nothing more than a relabeled $30 generic SLA battery someone else makes. So I figured that the same situation must be at play with the new lithium battery equipped battery drawer, and that if I could figure out who made the battery, I could retrofit my existing battery drawers to the newer battery technology.
I don't know who makes the batteries that are in the Hensel 1494 battery drawer, but CTC Battery, Inc. out of California makes a drop-in replacement for the standard SLA battery that has a built-in battery management system that lets you replace pretty much any SLA battery with it instead.
You can see the full specs on their web site here: http://www.ctcbattery.com/LiFePO4-Rechargeable-Battery/CTC-12-8V-13-2Ah-153-6Wh-Lithium-Iron-Phosphate-LiFePO4-Rechargeable-Battery
Just like losing weight around your waist the weight loss comes at a price. Although there's a lot of benefits to losing the unnecessary weight, you do end up paying more to do it (i.e. having to buy new clothes, paying more to eat healthier, etc). Before you get all excited, know that the battery isn't exactly cheap; or at least not as cheap as an SLA battery. Amazon sells the battery for $170 (http://www.amazon.com/Phosphate-replaces-LC-R1211P1-LC-CA1212P1-WKA12-12F2/dp/B00H7I11P6/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1437239953&sr=8-10&keywords=12.8v+lithium+iron). Still, for what Hensel wants for one battery from them, you can afford to upgrade FOUR of your existing battery drawers and still have money left over to buy the soldering iron you're going to need to do the replacement (http://www.amazon.com/Iso-Tip-7971-SolderPro-Butane-Soldering/dp/B001RIDT84/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1437240007&sr=8-4&keywords=butane+soldering+iron) !
Now are there any trade-offs with going to this lithium battery? Yes, definitely! First, the good trade-offs:
In other words you'd have a higher chance of hitting the jackpot in a lottery... twice... than the lithium inside the battery getting expose to water. The only reason I'm mentioning it though is that I know that some idiot, somewhere, will somehow manage to kill themselves and set fire to everything around them because they cracked the battery open to see if it'd catch fire if they poured water into it.
 |
| The Porty Premium Plus, in all it's glory. |
Technology has changed a lot since then though. Although the packs still kick ass, they've been eclipsed not only by Hensel themselves with newer battery technology but by other companies also. Hensel came out with the Porty Lithium series which cut a lot of weight off of the packs, and Alien Bees have since come out with not only their Einstein studio strobes but they've also come out with the Lithium based Vagabond portable power generator. In comparison the original Porty and Porty Premium packs feel like lead bricks because, well... there actually IS a lead brick inside of them. :) Let me tell you from experience that it ABSOLUTELY SUCKS lugging around a lead brick, especially when trudging through sand on a beach shoot. :D When I was in my late 20's/early 30's it wasn't that big of a deal. As I start my 40's I can definitely say that this getting old shit is starting to suck. :D
For a while now I've been contemplating trying to retrofit my Porty packs with Lithium batteries but on the surface it's not a straight forward or easy task. You not only have to worry about sourcing the lithium batteries, but you'd have to source a battery management board, AND you'd have to most likely replace the Hensel battery chargers too. After looking into it a few years ago I all but gave up on the idea.
Recently though my packs have been in need of new batteries. The batteries are getting up there in age; typically a lead-acid battery will only last six years max before it stops holding a significant charge. When that happens to the Hensel batteries it starts causing all sorts of weirdness with the packs themselves. No word of a lie here, my O.G. Porty (the one that has the battery in a trap door on the bottom, not the newer revision that has a battery tray like the Porty Premium) will turn itself on spontaneously when the battery starts going south. :D The Premium packs won't fire correctly, will shut off, etc. Until you figure out what's going on you start to think the packs themselves are damaged, but it's nothing more than a bad battery causing the problems.
So, knowing that I was going to need new batteries soon, I decided to look once more into the lithium route. Thankfully technology has progressed far enough where it's now possible to replace the SLA AGM batteries in the Hensel Porty Premium with lithium based batteries and it doesn't require any modification to the pack or chargers either.
 |
| The Original Gangsta (O.G.) Hensel Porty w/1200 watt-seconds of symmetrical love per port. :) |
Hensel themselves now make a Lithium battery for the Porty Premium, but at $685 it's not exactly "economical" ( http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/755807-REG/Hensel_1494_Battery_Drawer_with_Lithium.html ). Hell, to replaced the SLA battery in an existing Porty Premium battery tray with a genuine Hensel battery, it costs a little over $150 too ( http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/831176-REG/Hensel_4791_Battery_for_Porty_Premium.html ).
If you're like me though, you're frugal. You also know that the genuine Hensel SLA battery is nothing more than a relabeled $30 generic SLA battery someone else makes. So I figured that the same situation must be at play with the new lithium battery equipped battery drawer, and that if I could figure out who made the battery, I could retrofit my existing battery drawers to the newer battery technology.
I don't know who makes the batteries that are in the Hensel 1494 battery drawer, but CTC Battery, Inc. out of California makes a drop-in replacement for the standard SLA battery that has a built-in battery management system that lets you replace pretty much any SLA battery with it instead.
 |
Just like losing weight around your waist the weight loss comes at a price. Although there's a lot of benefits to losing the unnecessary weight, you do end up paying more to do it (i.e. having to buy new clothes, paying more to eat healthier, etc). Before you get all excited, know that the battery isn't exactly cheap; or at least not as cheap as an SLA battery. Amazon sells the battery for $170 (http://www.amazon.com/Phosphate-replaces-LC-R1211P1-LC-CA1212P1-WKA12-12F2/dp/B00H7I11P6/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1437239953&sr=8-10&keywords=12.8v+lithium+iron). Still, for what Hensel wants for one battery from them, you can afford to upgrade FOUR of your existing battery drawers and still have money left over to buy the soldering iron you're going to need to do the replacement (http://www.amazon.com/Iso-Tip-7971-SolderPro-Butane-Soldering/dp/B001RIDT84/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1437240007&sr=8-4&keywords=butane+soldering+iron) !
Now are there any trade-offs with going to this lithium battery? Yes, definitely! First, the good trade-offs:
- It's about 60% lighter than the stock SLA battery!
- It lasts about 30% longer too!
- Because there's a battery management controller built right into the battery housing you can continue to use the stock fast chargers that came with the Hensel packs!
- They hold their charge for a lot longer than an SLA battery.
- If you treat them right you'll get more discharge/recharge cycles out of them than a comparable SLA battery.
The not so good trade-offs:
- I can't speak to the Hensel branded lithium battery, but with the CTC battery you lose the ability to use fast recycle if you go over 8.0 power on the pack. What happens is the battery itself turns off because it thinks there's a short circuit (you then have to remove the battery, plug it back in, and then power the pack back up). The way around it is to put the pack in slow recycle mode. For me the reduced weight and the increased power capacity completely out-weight the need to use slow recycle over 8.0 power so it's not a big deal. Even with SLA batteries I usually used slow recycle mode anyways to extend the life of the batteries.
- I haven't tested this for sure, but knowing how lithium batteries work in laptops, chances are if you use the pack in a studio setup with the fast charger connected (so it's charging the pack as you use it), you'll probably shorten the life of the battery significantly. The only major benefit SLA batteries have over lithium packs is that they don't care if you charge them as you use them. As long as you don't completely discharge them to a zero volt state and sulfate the battery in the process, they'll take the abuse. Lithium battery packs? Yeah... they REALLY dislike it when you do that to them. The work-around is to either keep an SLA equipped battery tray to use "in-studio" so you can fast-charge it while you use the pack, or keep spare LiFePO4 equipped battery trays on chargers and swap them in as needed. I converted three of my five battery trays to LiFePO4 batteries; the two remaining SLA's are still good so I'll be using them in this fashion.
- Lithium based batteries have a really nasty habit of catching fire if you expose them to water. If you think about it, on one hand putting these kinds of batteries in a light pack that can get expose to water isn't the best idea. On the other hand you would have to go completely out of your way and do something INCREDIBLY STUPID to get the innards of the batteries wet. The lithium packs themselves are sealed in a battery carrier that looks identical to the one that SLA batteries are made from. In other words, water isn't getting in there unless you intentionally break the housing. You're also installing the batteries into a removable plastic battery tray, and that in turn gets shoved into a metal encased housing. The innards of the batteries aren't getting exposed to water by accident.
In other words you'd have a higher chance of hitting the jackpot in a lottery... twice... than the lithium inside the battery getting expose to water. The only reason I'm mentioning it though is that I know that some idiot, somewhere, will somehow manage to kill themselves and set fire to everything around them because they cracked the battery open to see if it'd catch fire if they poured water into it.
- I haven't tested this myself yet either, but chances are that the battery gauge on the pack will not properly display the discharge state of the battery. That's because the controller in the pack will try to put out a constant voltage, so even though the battery is low, the pack will "think" the battery is full. That's why if you look closely at the Hensel lithium battery tray it has a separate battery indicator. Not a deal breaker for sure but something to be aware of.
There is one other thing to mention here, and that's you can't easily convert the O.G. Porty to lithium unfortunately. :( Although you can buy a LiFePO4 battery that will fit exactly into the Porty, the problem is that the power draw is just too high for too long a period of time. The battery management board will think there's a short and cut the power output, so you won't be able to use the pack above a certain power threshold. The O.G. Porty doesn't have a slow recycle mode either so you can't get around the issue easily.
If you've read all this and you thought to yourself: "I have an Alien Bees Vagabond 150/300 or Vagabond 2. I should be able to do this to my pack too!", well you can... to a certain degree that is.
Theoretically you could retrofit the original Vagabond 150/300 with one of these lithium batteries and it most definitely would work. The problem is the amp draw on the battery. Doing some sleuthing around it appears that the Samlex 150W inverters used in the Vagabond can draw up to 20A from the battery. You would have to test this yourself to be sure but with one inverter you'd *probably* be fine with up to a B800 at full power. You'd have to do your own testing though (and you assume all risks and liabilities in the process), so if I'm wrong about that, tough cookies. :P :)
With two (the Vagabond 300, which is just two 150w inverters in one package) would probably NOT work since combined they've be drawing 40A at full load.
The Vagabond 2 would be a little more flexible since it has a slow recycle mode.
Saturday, April 11, 2015
An open response to Pat Pope's open response to Garbage.
If you're friends with me on my Facebook page, no doubt you've seen the article I posted on April 9th by Pat Pope by now.
http://www.diyphotography.net/stop-working-for-free-pat-popes-final-word-on-his-open-letter-to-garbage/
Garbage posted a response to the letter on their facebook page. You can follow the whole heated debacle here:
http://www.facebook.com/GarbageOfficial/posts/981221691888682
I took the time to post a reply on Garbage's response with my own thoughts and experiences, but the chances of you people actually seeing it are slim because of the way the commenting system works on Facebook. So.... I'm posting what I wrote here for all to see. Feel free to chime in on the comments section if you agree or disagree with me or the whole can of worms this topic brings up.
Let me preface this by saying that I'm not a fan of Garbage, though I am a fan of Shirley. :) Loved Shirley in T:TSCC and I've got a thing for redheads too, but that's a whole other subject. :D
I'm neither going to demonize Garbage for asking for free photos nor demonize Pat Pope for posting a public open letter to their request. Garbage, along with their management company, are quite literally doing pretty much what everyone else is doing: asking for free stuff. Everybody loves free stuff... unless you're the one being asked to provide it. That's when you realize that free really isn't free; someone somewhere is footing the bill.
Those of you jumping all over Pat Pope; you missed the point of the open letter by about 200AU. If you stop now, think, and give it some time to sink in, maybe Voyager 1 will catch up to you in another 50 years. :P :D
Everybody likes to use the word "professional", but it's astounding just how many people don't have a grasp of what being a professional is. Being a professional is more than a way of doing business. It also means you value your own and others time and respect that they also are trying to make a living.
I for one am ecstatic that Pat chose to post his response publicly for a few reasons. For one, it brings to light a very real issue these days: professionals acting unprofessionally, then getting butt hurt when you call them out on it. Additionally it brings this whole subject into the limelight.
Part of the reason why it's become so commonplace is that it's become taboo to talk about it. I myself used to think that I must have an invisible "The Goodwill of Photography" sign on my back because of all the people hitting me up wanting either to use my work for free, or for me to take free photos of them. The whole "taboo" aspect of it is why these "professional" entities get away with it.
How many of you have already forgotten that the NFL was thinking about making artists pay to appear at the superbowl halftime show? Once word got out and made public they made a very quick turn-around on that though because of the backlash. If that hadn't been made public I guarantee that eventually that "business model" would have trickled down elsewhere.
I myself have pretty much heard it all by now from similar businesses though. Radio stations, liquor companies, local bands, book authors, people looking for free pics for their facebook profiles... the list goes on. The arguments are always the same in all cases:
-We don't have any money (but if you read their financial statements, they raked in 300 million the previous year. That happened to me and I'm not making that up whatsoever).
-I need to prove that you're the right person for the job.
-If you let us use your work/do work for us, others will hire you!
-So and so did it for us last year. Why don't you do it too?
-We used to use (insert name here). They were a bunch of assholes. We like you though!
... and in some cases:
-You should be paying us to take photos of us!
The list goes on and on and I could take up my whole day today going into detail with it all, but I've got better things to do.
It isn't just artists this happens to as well. I also do computer work and no word of a lie, a local company that I was helping out (and was working for next to nothing as it was) started playing games and making it sound like they were doing ME the favor by letting me work for them. I quickly kicked their asses to the curb for that.
Like it or not Pat is 10000000% correct in his statements, especially about the abuse of power. If you won't do it for free they'll just find someone else to do it. In the process you'll be blacklisted because you didn't give in. That's happened to me in every instance where either I've politely declined to work pro bono or I've told them to go shit in their hat.
In closing; they say there's no harm in asking. When the entity doing the asking isn't really asking, but DEMANDING that you give in to them (and if you don't there's reprocussions levied against you), then there's real harm being done. Last time I checked, the technical term for that is extortion...
http://www.diyphotography.net/stop-working-for-free-pat-popes-final-word-on-his-open-letter-to-garbage/
Garbage posted a response to the letter on their facebook page. You can follow the whole heated debacle here:
http://www.facebook.com/GarbageOfficial/posts/981221691888682
I took the time to post a reply on Garbage's response with my own thoughts and experiences, but the chances of you people actually seeing it are slim because of the way the commenting system works on Facebook. So.... I'm posting what I wrote here for all to see. Feel free to chime in on the comments section if you agree or disagree with me or the whole can of worms this topic brings up.
****************************************
Let me preface this by saying that I'm not a fan of Garbage, though I am a fan of Shirley. :) Loved Shirley in T:TSCC and I've got a thing for redheads too, but that's a whole other subject. :D
I'm neither going to demonize Garbage for asking for free photos nor demonize Pat Pope for posting a public open letter to their request. Garbage, along with their management company, are quite literally doing pretty much what everyone else is doing: asking for free stuff. Everybody loves free stuff... unless you're the one being asked to provide it. That's when you realize that free really isn't free; someone somewhere is footing the bill.
Those of you jumping all over Pat Pope; you missed the point of the open letter by about 200AU. If you stop now, think, and give it some time to sink in, maybe Voyager 1 will catch up to you in another 50 years. :P :D
Everybody likes to use the word "professional", but it's astounding just how many people don't have a grasp of what being a professional is. Being a professional is more than a way of doing business. It also means you value your own and others time and respect that they also are trying to make a living.
I for one am ecstatic that Pat chose to post his response publicly for a few reasons. For one, it brings to light a very real issue these days: professionals acting unprofessionally, then getting butt hurt when you call them out on it. Additionally it brings this whole subject into the limelight.
Part of the reason why it's become so commonplace is that it's become taboo to talk about it. I myself used to think that I must have an invisible "The Goodwill of Photography" sign on my back because of all the people hitting me up wanting either to use my work for free, or for me to take free photos of them. The whole "taboo" aspect of it is why these "professional" entities get away with it.
How many of you have already forgotten that the NFL was thinking about making artists pay to appear at the superbowl halftime show? Once word got out and made public they made a very quick turn-around on that though because of the backlash. If that hadn't been made public I guarantee that eventually that "business model" would have trickled down elsewhere.
I myself have pretty much heard it all by now from similar businesses though. Radio stations, liquor companies, local bands, book authors, people looking for free pics for their facebook profiles... the list goes on. The arguments are always the same in all cases:
-We don't have any money (but if you read their financial statements, they raked in 300 million the previous year. That happened to me and I'm not making that up whatsoever).
-I need to prove that you're the right person for the job.
-If you let us use your work/do work for us, others will hire you!
-So and so did it for us last year. Why don't you do it too?
-We used to use (insert name here). They were a bunch of assholes. We like you though!
... and in some cases:
-You should be paying us to take photos of us!
The list goes on and on and I could take up my whole day today going into detail with it all, but I've got better things to do.
It isn't just artists this happens to as well. I also do computer work and no word of a lie, a local company that I was helping out (and was working for next to nothing as it was) started playing games and making it sound like they were doing ME the favor by letting me work for them. I quickly kicked their asses to the curb for that.
Like it or not Pat is 10000000% correct in his statements, especially about the abuse of power. If you won't do it for free they'll just find someone else to do it. In the process you'll be blacklisted because you didn't give in. That's happened to me in every instance where either I've politely declined to work pro bono or I've told them to go shit in their hat.
In closing; they say there's no harm in asking. When the entity doing the asking isn't really asking, but DEMANDING that you give in to them (and if you don't there's reprocussions levied against you), then there's real harm being done. Last time I checked, the technical term for that is extortion...
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