Sunpak 383 AC adapter

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

Does anybody know the model name / number of the AC adapter that fits the 383 ? I sometimes use my flash in an umbrella and I could save peanuts and recycle time from ditching batteries.

 

[Mike Wilde]

a non oem solution

I run a metz 60ct2 in an umbrella sometimes, and I know what you mean. The 6V 4.2aH dryfit can get low, and for me that means about 2 days to juice it back up to full charge.

I have taken the old original battery, now sulfated and useless stored power wise, and cut the guts out of it to give me the right sized form package to feed power into the flash power pack from an external source. Kind of like a quantum battery approach as seen in old vivitar 283's. I first ran it from a 6V larger UPS battery to verify the concept.

Then I fed the thing from a surpls PC power supply when the rest of the computer was tossed as obsolete. The PC power supply puts out 5V at 20A all day long if you wnat it to. The lead acid battery fades to lower then 5V prettry quickly, so I don't see any trouble using it. It recylces from a full manual dump in under 6 seconds. I don't want to cyce my metz head any faster for fear of melting the plastic around the flash tube; these things were never built to cycle like a real studio flash.

 

[crabby]

Does anybody know the model name / number of the AC adapter that fits the 383 ? I sometimes use my flash in an umbrella and I could save peanuts and recycle time from ditching batteries.

Recycle time on AC is very slow at full power.

 

[eric]

I just bought 2 sb-4 for my vivitar 283's. 14 bucks. People on ebay sell them for 2x as much used. 14 bucks new at B&H. (okay, I think it was 15). I have like 4 or 5 Vivitar 283s and the ac plug is great.

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

Recycle time on AC is very slow at full power.

Damn, you're right. I just found the documentation for the flash, and it's at least 13s recycle time, compared to 1s for the battery pack. Think I'll go for the battery pack instead.

 

[crabby]

Damn, you're right. I just found the documentation for the flash, and it's at least 13s recycle time, compared to 1s for the battery pack. Think I'll go for the battery pack instead.

I run my Vivitar 283's and 285's with 6v gel cells. This setup requires special battery compartment adapters and cables. Complete power kits were easy to find at camera specialty shops (such as Armato's in Queens, NY) during the heyday of these flashes in the 1980's. Flashes accepted the gel cells, which you could hook onto your belt if you handheld the camera and flash bracket. Their plastic shoe was replaced with a metal foot, drilled with a standard 1/4" screw mount. Flash cord input was modified to accept household 2-prong p-c cable. A neat, lightweight high-powered setup in its day. Still useful to many pros who don't require TTL.