A Portable Power Box for Photographers

Step 2 The Inverter

If you don't use a pure sine wave inverter, you will risk damaging your strobes. Some modified sine wave inverters are deliberately mislabelled and sold as pure sine wave inverters.

Attach the inverter with bolts and lock washers. Whatever surface you mount the inverter on, it must be horizontal or the internal fan will not work properly. Use the stripped electrical grounding wire to attach the inverter ground connector to the tool box ground bolt. Ideally the grounding wire should be 6 gauge, but it's difficult to work with anything that large in a small space.

I've heard rumours that Samlex  has significantly changed the design of their inverters since I built the power box. I have not tested these new inverters, but it would be interesting to know how well they work.  Update: The new 300 watt Samlex inverters are unusable. They now automatically shut down under stress.

The inverter company Samlex has stated that when building power boxes the inverter's surge rating should be four time the watt rating of the strobe. A 300 watt strobe would need a surge rating of 1200 watts, which matches the surge rating of  a 600 watt Samlex inverter.