Hensel to Broncolor wire

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edouardm
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Hensel to Broncolor wire

Post by edouardm »

Hi, I'd need to rewire Hensel's Flash Box to Broncolor gen (Graphit Pack). Same voltage, heard on the net it was one of the easiest adapt to do, but still, don't really know how to operate... Any thoughts would be great. Thank you

Macro_Cosmos
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Post by Macro_Cosmos »

I don't want to sound insane or paranoid, but you must do your research and be 100% certain with the wiring. This isn't rewiring some LED.

I'd imagine the wires would need to be beefy enough to withstand the high voltages. My honest opinion is, if you don't know... don't do it. Get a friend who's good at this stuff to do it for you, or go over to sites such as the EEVblog with your source and ask the folks there for a direction.

edouardm
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Post by edouardm »

Yes you are right, one's got to stay really prudent. Thank you for the EEVblog I didn't heard about.

edouardm
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Post by edouardm »

Searching the web, here are some clues from the luminous Landscape. I hope the photographer won't bother if I quote him. The issue was about Hensel to Bron conversion - not especially for the Hensel Flash box : ''It is absolutely no problem to do the conversion. You´ll have to remove the trigger capacitor of the unit. It was placed in the plug in early units, later they put it in the heads because of the wires mechanical fell off the capacitors after some time in the plug. There is one other important thing, if you intend to use this head with grafit or scoro packs, move or similar: You´ll need to check the flash tubes. If they have three electrodes (not counting the trigger) be careful, they might exceed the max. current draw these units are rated for, resulting in an expensive damage of the cut-off boards. If you have a grafit pack it is easy to check though.''

Macro_Cosmos
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Post by Macro_Cosmos »

edouardm wrote:Searching the web, here are some clues from the luminous Landscape. I hope the photographer won't bother if I quote him. The issue was about Hensel to Bron conversion - not especially for the Hensel Flash box : ''It is absolutely no problem to do the conversion. You´ll have to remove the trigger capacitor of the unit. It was placed in the plug in early units, later they put it in the heads because of the wires mechanical fell off the capacitors after some time in the plug. There is one other important thing, if you intend to use this head with grafit or scoro packs, move or similar: You´ll need to check the flash tubes. If they have three electrodes (not counting the trigger) be careful, they might exceed the max. current draw these units are rated for, resulting in an expensive damage of the cut-off boards. If you have a grafit pack it is easy to check though.''
This sounds simple since I come from an electrical engineering background, but wow I will not recommend anyone do this themselves, at all.

- A capacitor put in presumable wire holders? Is this Hensel we're talking about? I won't expect this from Youngnuo even. That sounds uncomfortable to me.
- So the number of electrodes matter here. Did the author do any extensive testing? 3 will pose a disaster, why should I trust 2 or 4 without actual numbers? Why should I even trust 3? Maybe for his specific batch, it works.
- Expensive damage is underrated, it might be worse... ie injure someone. These strobes are basically high power stuff packed in a little box, it's dangerous to fiddle around with!

There's more stuff on top of this. If the anyopne wants to open something like a battery pack, all the capacitors need to have their charge released, or zap and bye bye to the world. This is serious stuff, not flashing an LED. You can set the battery pack aside for a week or two so the capacitors gets drained naturally. The current output can be dropped relatively easily with basic circuits, so it won't damage the light or set the house on fire, however all this would require a good multimeter (not ebay rubbish, Fluke etc branded ones with proper CAT ratings) and testing. I'd imagine it's possible to swap out capacitors too, there's a Chinese forum called Shanke that specialises in modding strobes to get better performance, people there are experts and know what they are doing.

Forum member mawyatt should be able to provide a lot more insight. I have almost zero experience with EE outside of books, lost my passion after actually doing the degree. :oops:

edouardm
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Post by edouardm »

Thank you for your advices.

I don't want to touch my generator and I don't want to modify anything else than this special unit called Flash box (here is a picture). It owns 2 flash tubes with anode, catode and trigger electrode (here is a picture).

Image

Image

edouardm
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Post by edouardm »

I googled Chinese forum called Shanke and unfortunatly couldn't find it.

chris_ma
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Post by chris_ma »

I'd also advice against it, for the same reasons Macro_Cosmos mentioned.

chances might be 95% that it works with no issues, but the 5% when it doesn't could end up really bad, at worst case costing lives.

why not sell the broncolor generator and buy a hensel one? (or the other way round)
chris

mawyatt
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Post by mawyatt »

Agree with Macro_Cosmos and chris_ma. These flash units, even the small battery powered units that mount on the camera hot shoe, have lethal voltages present and the capacitors can hold this voltage for quite some time, long after things are turned off and disconnected.

As mentioned, have someone that's experienced with high voltage and power electronics modify this for you, a electronics repair service would be a good resource.

Best,
Research is like a treasure hunt, you don't know where to look or what you'll find!
~Mike

Macro_Cosmos
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Post by Macro_Cosmos »

edouardm wrote:I googled Chinese forum called Shanke and unfortunatly couldn't find it.
Well it's in Chinese, 閃客日記.
The forum is now disbanded. Owner was last seen in the chat group on the 18th of Feb.

Google never works for anything China related.
This was the site: http://bbs.shanke001.com/
Gone now.

edouardm
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Post by edouardm »

All right, thanks a lot everyone.

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