Steven Sandler 1967 wrote:
I may need to use my strobes on a location shoot, but I don’t have a portable power pack ($$$$$).  I'm doing 100% art collabs/TFP now, so I can't go crazy buying gear.  I’m considering using a power inverter off my truck battery. Do any of you know how clean my line voltage needs to be so that I don’t risk damaging my monolights? Modified sine wave inverters are really cheap, but they don’t deliver the cleanest line voltage. True sine wave inverters deliver power that’s cleaner than the power in your house, but they’re fairly pricey, especially at the wattage I’d need (probably over 1,500 watts).  I already have a 250 watt modified wave inverter, but I doubt it's powerful enough to power one or two strobes.  Can't find any specs for required wattage input.  Any thoughts would be appreciated.  Note: I'm assuming that I won't be able to use my modeling lights, which is NBD

Short Answer:
Buy some Paul Buff monolights and a Paul Buff "Vagabond" battery inverter.  Buff's lights and inverters are quite reasonably priced.

Long Answer:

The power needed for a studio strobe is dependent on the light's charging circuit, not the firing circuit.  Depending on the design, a 2.500Ws light might actually be easier to power than a 320Ws light.

Some lights can stand modified sine wave power, but some lights will be damaged by that. 

Studio strobes tend to draw very little power most of the time (just a little more than the modeling light needs), and then will have a very high peak demand while recharging.

A simple 320Ws light might easily draw 15 amps (1,800W) while recharging.  This happens fast enough that it two of them probably won't trip the household circuit breaker.  However a 300W inverter just can't handle this.  To get 15 amps at 120VAC, the inverter needs to pull over 150 amps from the 12V DC battery.

Buffs lights and inverters are designed to work together.  The inverter is "current limited".  When presented with an overload, it doesn't shut down, it reduces the output voltage.  The lights are designed to reduce their demand when the voltage goes down.  Together you can plug multiple Buff lights into a Buff inverter, and it will work.  As you add lights, the recycle time gets longer.

You can try other lights on Buff inverters, other inverters on Buff lights, or non buff lights with non buff inverters.  You might get lucky and it may work.  On the other hand it may not work, and you might damage the lights.

The advantage of the all Buff solution is that it is guaranteed to work so you don't have to spend time testing out various combinations.