I think I've seen a few people say they own these. I picked up one of these recently with a bare bulb head and read about using 7.2V RC battery packs to speed up the lacklusture recycle time (battery holder provides 6V). I checked which pins from the stock battery holder provided the power and the polarity and got a 5000mAh 7.2V pack adding a male-to-male tamiya adapter since the connector fits the pins fairly well.
The result is that it now recycles at full power in 2.5secs and with 5000mAh has an almost unlimited amount of flashes. I overdid it a bit I think and could have got a lower capacity pack which would have taken less time to charge and been even cheaper.
Some power tests (obviously these are not changed with the battery pack)
51” shoot through umbrella (full power):
SB800 (@35mm) f/4.2
622 super pro (@35mm) f/8.1
Bare bulb head with 110x90cm softbox:
622 super pro (full power) f/5.6
Profoto AcuteB2 600 @ 640ws f/11.0
(In agreement with manual which gives bare bulb 170ws)
Weight of flash, battery pack and other things stripped off is 1.4kg which is not insignificant since the acuteB head is 1.6kg but having the same power as four SB800s isn’t too bad.
The velcro straps are generic ski tie ones from ebay. The Tamiya connector isn't perfect in that there is no way to make in 'lock' in but it fits positively enough it's never come off.
My recycle times are similar to yours, the 'full blue' doesn't seem to give any more power so I ignore it. Amazing you can get the same recycle times with two less cells - where did you get those batteries from?
The batteries originally came from ebay I think. I have some other 'non-make' from China which work equally well @5000mAh.. they're just nicads but obviously with greater storage than the originals. I don't know why that makes a difference, but the recycle times are pretty good for such a powerful flash.
It's a shame the 622's aren't supported anymore for digital. Their compact/power output/battery combination is killer and makes them real performers. Their design makes them really easy to give to people to hold and point.. I velcro radio receivers to the front of the battery holders which keep them out of the way.
