Strobes without a lightmeter

Hi all,
I just got a 3 light studio set up and I only used them about 4 times so far. I am having great trouble meter it without a lightmeter, If anyone knows how to meter the lights both as a unit and seperate to get a proper ratio that would greatly help me.

Lighint set up = 2 160 w/s strobes, 1 36 w/s strobe
160's are with medium softboxes and the other with an umbrella
I bought the kit off of ebay, seems to be a very nice kit, works great for what I want to do and a great starting/learning kit.

Any help would be great. I plan on getting a lightmeter, but until then I need to meter the light somehow.

I'm no expert but unless you just do basic trial and error I don't know of a way to meter or approximate metering. You can set up lights and manually attempt to create the ratios between main, fill, hair or background lights but it's all rough and you'll do a lot of shooting and checking, shooting and checking..........

With more than 1 light (or 2 at a pinch) you need a meter. Full stop.

All I can suggest in the absence of a light meter is to have strobes with identical powers and modifiers, equidistant from your subject, and use the output power control to drive your ratios. But that's VERY restrictive.

A meter will make things a lot faster and easier if you are using more than one light.

But, with some care in setup and using the histogram and reviewing the initial exposures you can get a good exposure and something close to you basic lighting intent.

Be sure to keep good notes on your setup, so each successive time you work you can make improvements and try new things.

Buy the way, it is Watt-seconds (or W-S or Ws) not Watts per second (or W/s).

Enjoy! Lon