Hello, all ---
Once again, a technical question. Does the capacitor in T32 and/or T20
flashes need to be 'formed' after a period of no use? How best can said
forming be done?
The basis of this is two-fold. First, I have a pair of Honeywell Studio
Strobes (ac powered), for which the instructions say to power them up for
an hour or two before a photo session, if they have not been used for a
month or two. The idea is to condition or 'form' the capacitors so that
they come up to full charge and thereby deliver full rated power uniformly
during a photo session. Second, I have noticed with most battery power
flashes I have owned that the cycle time goes down after the first couple
of shots (before the batteries get used too much). Since all of them are
some variation on automatic, I cannot judge if the output power is varying,
but....
I noticed with a T32 I recently acquired that the first time I powered it
up it took a L.O.N.G time for the ready light to come on (I almost thought
I'd bought a defective unit). However, after a couple of cycles (fired
with the test button), things started working fine, though the first set of
batteries seem to have faded pretty quickly.
Another data point: I had the opportunity to borrow a Minolta flashmeter
last winter, and I used it to measure the output power of every flash I
could find - all in manual mode of course. What I found was, except for the
newest flash (about 1 year old), every one of the flash's output power was
about 2/3 to 1-2/3 stops LOW, potentially due to 'aging' of the capacitor
(leakage, resistance increase, etc.)
Anyway, it seems to me the best way to condition a flash that has not been
used for awhile? I'd hate to kill off a set of batteries for just that
purpose, but that would probably be OK, if I knew how long to let the flash
idle in a charged state (Or is it better to pop off a number of flashes?).
Another alternative is to use the a/c power cord, if one can find one.....
I suppose I should have searched the archives on this, and I apologize if
this is an old topic - just that I've never seen much on this on other
photo forums.
Any insight will be appreciated!
Curt
Curt and Sally Hedman
hedma003@xxxxxxxxxx
cphedman@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Curtis_Hedman@xxxxxxx
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