Would you buy a non fan-cooled strobe?

I have a local photographer who is looking to sell some of his older White Lightnings.. by older, I mean "Ultra" series, so almost 1990 type stuff. I know PCB is pretty decent quality, and they stand by their product, and I've considered the cost of replacement tubes, shipping to PCB if failure occurs, etc. I'm comfortable with the risk given the very aggressive pricing from this gentleman.

However, the unknown here is the lack of fan-cooling. Has anyone here actually nuked a strobe before? I've read of people doing it after 500-600 shots on full power back to back, etc.. but for my most extreme uses, I'd be looking at *maybe* 200 shots @ full power, outdoors, in a brolly box, modeling light off (in the case of a modifier like that) over a period of an hour. Indoors I wouldn't think that'd be too much, but if it's a 90 degree day that might change things..

What are you thoughts? Is it crazy to even consider a non fan-cooled strobe?

Are you getting these are very nice price?

Just double check with PCB that the models you are looking at are still supported. A few of the older "can" style lights are not repairable if I remember correctly.

Yeah, pretty decent price.. These aren't the can style, they're actually the same form-factor as the
current X-series, just w/o a fan.

These are about 11 years old from what I understand, just previous to the existing generation of the White Lightning X series.

If the price is right, go for it.

Thanks guys! I sent PCB an email with the serial numbers asking about support, just to be sure, we'll see what they say.

Nothing to do really with the PCB lights, but even some old Elinchrom made D Lites don't have fans. Even the much newer Quadra don't have any fans (then again it is not a monoblock so can't compare them)

Sure. I use mostly Speedotron and have some that are fan-cooled and some that are not. There are many brands (like all the Speedotron Brownline)that have no fans and seem to work. I would think that cooling could be important for very heavy duty use or very high power.

I am not a particular "fan" of White Lightning but do have one WL unit that works.

My prolincas have an absolute hammering, no fan, no problems in twenty years.

You think those are old? ... Those aren't old!
I still have two WL1200s and one WL600 that are one generation older than those. They work the same as the day they were made. Absolute work horses. I still use them.

ultra and ultrazap are two different series with the ultra being the older version. I've worked with both ultra 600's and 1800's as well as ultrazap 2400's. I never had a problem with overheating issues with the ultras. It seems to me that the entire aluminum housing is a heat sync. Then again, i was never repeatedly blasting them at full power. I don't have access to the 600's anymore but two of our three 1800s still work. The company tried to get the third one fixed at one point and i gathered that it was no longer supported. The one thing that i wasn't a 'fan' of with regard to the ultra series... they had 2 halfcircle tubes instead of the ring shaped ones. I actually had one and not the other fail on a film shoot. No alarm, no total failure, just suddenly 1/2 the light. The only way i knew was that it started making some 'funny noises' of an electrical nature. (evidently it is very bad to run the thing on one tube) I don't know why these lights were designed that way, but it's a bummer.

EDIT: The strobes you pictured are from the ultrazap series... As I said I've used the 2400's of this series extensively and I like them a lot. I believe they have a 'thermal switch' to stop them from overheating. Kind of annoying if it happens in the middle of a shoot, but i suppose it's better than a fire.

Here's a cr*ppy cel phone pic comparing the size differnce between the 1000ws ultrazap, (gold) and the 1000ws Ultra 1800 (black)

Buff sells the UFAN, an add-on Ultra Series Cooling Fan for $49.95. Not sure if it fits the Ultra Zap, but you can check with them.