Outdoor power supply????

[Simple]

A question for the knowledgeable many on CC. I would like to do some outdoor shoots, with smoke machine and several studio flashes. To get power to these items I am thinking of getting a cheap and cheerful 2 stroke generator (roughly £100). Now somewhere in my mind alarm bells are ringing and I am dreading blowing my flashes to bits. I have heard about terminology like "sine wave" converters and like most things electrical I am at a loss. Would a simple caravan like genny do the job, or do I have to save more and go for something specific dedicated to photography?? Weight is not a big issue, because I have a big entourage of hangers on that can carry things. (No, not the models) Anybody out there that has followed this path??

[Jonathan]

It might work.  It might blow your lights up.  Odds are it will work for a bit then your lights will mysteriously stop working.  You really want a pure sine inverter.

IIRC the current draw from monolights is MASSIVE for a really short time and this can stall some genys.  The good smoke machines also draw a lot of power.  You want one much more powerful than you think.

People do this and it works but if it was easy there would be a generator pack on the market and AFAIK there isn't.

Basically, you want one of these http://www.innovatronix.com/prodindex.asp

[Simple]

Thanks Jonathan for your quick reply.
I sort of guessed that a genny would not work for the long run. Thanks for the link. These things are basically dollar for pound in this country. I found them now at park cameras. Still a lot cheaper than I thought they would be. I think I will wait until I have the money and go for one of these.
Thanks again.