amvona softbox. Assembly?

[Nick Zentena]

Somebody mentioned amvona I forget who. So I picked up one of those cheap softboxes. Well has anybody managed to put one of these together???

The inscructions are

"Slide the 4 aluminum tipped steal support rods through the pockets along the inside corners of your Soft box (designed to hold the rods in place). Position the connector in the center of the Soft box facing down. Insert the ends of the rods into the connector (diagonally opposing sides first). Make sure all four rods are firmly seated in the connector. The Soft box will take the correct dome shape"

Okay I got the rods in. But the rest???

 

[removed account4]

hi nick

i don't have an amvona box, but i have a feeling they might assemble like others ...

open the softbox on a clean area ...
have it so the white part is down, and open the other end - you should see
a long pocket down the edges of the fabric ( interior ) put the tubes into the pockets "tip first" (or it might be just the edge the tube goes down )
... you should have the open-end of the tubes now sticking out of the softbox ...
the connector might not look like a connector ... it might be a square piece with 4 holes ( one at each corner ) ... you carefully put the open end of the tubes into the holes in the connector - put oposing ends in after eachother not 1-2-3-4, but 1-3-2-4 ( if that makes any sense) ... the softbox should be rigid at this point now that the backplate is attached ( connector ) ... and the connector afixes it to your light source ...

i have a feeling once you do it once, you will see what they were talking about in their instructions ...

if what i said makes absolutely no sense! call their 800#, i am sure they might be able to help you better than i did since they will have your soft box infront of them, like you will have it infront of you

report back how you like it ...
i have a feeling they are a pretty nice inexpensive alternative to the $300 + ones: http://www.larson-ent.com/products_list.php?cat_id=278

good luck!!

john

 

[Nick Zentena]

I think I'm going to have to phone tomorrow -( The connector I have is the universal speed ring. I really can't see how this thing is supposed to hold everything in place.

It was only $13 on Ebay for the 2x3 and I've got a 3'x4' coming that cost me $15 plus shipping. If I can figure it out I'm sure it'll be something obvious. No rush yet. I haven't even bought one light yet-)

 

[Nick Zentena]

Looked at the picture for the octo shaped one they sell and I figured it out. Seems the ring has holes on the outside. Who would have thought. Now to figure out the front of the box.

 

[JamesG]

AMVONA... ugh. It was a disaster dealing with them. Never again!!!

 

[eric]

AMVONA... ugh. It was a disaster dealing with them. Never again!!!

I got an inexpensive Ball Head for my tripod. Looked okay, price was right. Could be good for a small camera. Took forever for them to ship it. Then when I got it, the camara plate on the ball head was not that secure. You can wiggle the camera (and it was a small camera!). I wouldn't deal with those guys again.

 

[JamesG]

They are nasty people too. I tried to resolve the problem through e-mails; no responses. Called them. They told me it was my problem that their crap was useless. Then they got nasty when I did not accept their line of reasoning.

James

 

[Nick Zentena]

They wait a week to ship anything. It's there way of encouraging you to pay for the higher priced rush shipping. OTOH shipping to Canada is slow enough that an added week is no big issue. I also just waited until I'd managed to win a couple of things and had them combine shipping. Made the shipping much more reasonable.

Outside of the hassle with speed rings I'm reasonably happy with what I got. The cases are fine. Not the best of the best but better then the price paid. The softboxes seem okay. I'll see how long they last.

The only problem I had was they shipped the wrong umbrella softbox. They sent me the right one for the auction price. No shipping. So I got to keep the first one and got the other one for very little. No real need for it but a lot less hassle then shipping back and forth.

 

[AZLF]

I have two of the Amvona soft boxes and while they were a pita to assemble they have worked fine once together. I did have to do some modification the the mounting ring to get them to fit my Bogen mono lights but once modified they have worked quite well. Of course I don't plan on ever breaking them back down again though. I doubt they would take more than a few cycles of that kind of stress on the corner points where the rods are inserted. But for a studio situation they were an inexpensive way to get a couple of really BIG soft boxes.

 

[RJS]

I have one of the Amvona soft boxes sitting on the floor of my living room and I have about given up on trying to rig it for use wirh my Lowel hot lights. It was a bit diificult to assemble - and seems much more difficult to disassembe. As a last resort has anyone had succes hanging the thing on hot lights? It seems a nice soft box, was a real bargain, I guess if you figure $20 was a bargain for a neat appearing thing that you can't use!

 

[AZLF]

I have one of the Amvona soft boxes sitting on the floor of my living room and I have about given up on trying to rig it for use wirh my Lowel hot lights.


And that's a good thing. These boxes were never intended for use with constant lighting and would probably burst into flame had you managed to rig your Lowel lights up with them. The soft boxes intended for use with quartz lighting are made of much heavier and more fire retardant material than these units which were designed to be use with strobe lights. Its been a lot of years but as I recall the quartz soft boxes I used when working with a commerical photographer in the 80's had metal frames and some sort of high temp plastic diffusers and were quite heavy. And they also were rated at over 2000 watts per unit. Thats a lot of heat.

 

[Nick Zentena]

http://www.amvona.com/v7/shop/?page=shop/product_desc&print=1&product_id=2378

Somebody better tell the company then.

"The DynaPhos™ narrow profile octagonal light bank can be used with strobes or continuous lighting"

 

[AZLF]

http://www.amvona.com/v7/shop/?page=shop/product_desc&print=1&product_id=2378

Somebody better tell the company then.

"The DynaPhos™ narrow profile octagonal light bank can be used with strobes or continuous lighting"

My mistake. I thought you were talking about the fully enclosed version. I just looked and don't see an example of the ones I bought last year. But mine are about 36x24", with a black nylon back, an inner white diffuser and a white front diffuser also of a nylon type material. They are fairly light weight and would melt if placed anywhere near a hot quartz light.

 

[removed account4]

nick

i think they mean their continuous lighting units. they do not get nearly as hot as lowell lights - they have a fan and don't give off nearly as much heat ... ( according to the folks who answer their phone ) ...

i could be wrong though ...
-john

 

[Nick Zentena]

I think thier big ones are 2000 watts. A fan would help some but inside a softbox it's still going to get hot Anybody know what the material is? Tin foil is pretty wimpy but it's pretty fire proof to.