Vintage Broncolor and Elinchrom compatibility?

[yashima]

This question is for Broncolor veterans in our forums.

I'm a dedicated Elinchrom user and love their older range of equipment, extremely well-built, all-metal with some really unique pieces (boxlite, R3000, square reflector, S35 fresnel ..).

I can't help but notice the similarity between older Elinchrom and older Broncolor stuff, for example the Boxlite, the Elinchrom S35 and Broncolor Flooter, the HMIs .. It seems like they are made by the same third party company. Considering they are both Swiss, this doesn't seem unlikely

Recently I got my hand on some older Broncolor packs. and to my surprise the connector pin on the cable are the same. It took me abit of courage but I managed to fire the Elinchrom Boxlite and R3000 with it.


So I would like to ask if anyone knows a bit more about the compatibility between the two companies? Do the more modern Broncolor packs (Grafit, Scoro ..) work with Elinchrom heads as well? Is there any danger for me to do so?

I have always envied the colour consistency of Broncolor, however I've been with Elinchrom for a long time, a complete change seems daunting. However if I can add a few Bron packs so that I can use most of my Elinchrom heads, I'd be very very happy.

Many thanks.

[Josef_Meier]

Very strange.  Broncolor and Elinchrom do not have the same connector wiring. The plug looks the same but thats it.
Please do measure again for your own safety !

As far as I remember Elinchrom even has an other wiring in the flashhead. The trigger coil was connected different. A bit hard to adapt to bron.

Broncolor is compatible to all new and old Bron equipment. Which i like. This is not the case with many other flash manufactors.

I had bad experience with Elinchrom. They used some bad caps in a lot of flashheads. So they needed way to much service.

[yashima]

Thanks Josef. Yes I have just learnt that the owner of the studio I visited actually rewired those Elinchrom heads for Broncolor packs. They are not compatible originally.

Do you have their wiring diagram by any chance? Elinchrom has some special flash heads that are much more cheaper than Bron equivalent (R3000, Boxlite, equivalent to Broncolor Striplite and Boxlite), I really want to try rewiring. Sorry to hear you have bad experience with Elinchrom, they have served me well so far, but yes they do need service every now and then.

[Josef_Meier]

I really don`t recomend doing the rewiring. There is high voltage that can easily kill you if you make a mistake.
This is only for electronic specialists.

And the wiring in Elinchrome is diferent on the trigger coil which makes it even harder.
Adapting Hensel to Bron is more easy.

And some new powerpacks are sensitive to flashtubes. They are controlled with electronics that can get damaged when using a wrong flashtube.
And you have to set the power of the flashead with a resistor, so the pack knows which head is connected.

Some flash service offer rewiring, an they know what they are doing.

[yashima]

Advice taken. I will ask a local flash service centre before going ahead.