Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

The first 7 min are the setup and various testing before it happens for the first time http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKyIoPx0gHk

OK, there are a few things from that video which caught my attention.

First, whenever you use the RJ11 telephone connection, the power sliders should be set to full. Also, the model lamp buttons should be pushed in. Failure to do these can lead to adverse results in the light's behavior, and it is not always consistent in its characteristics or frequency.

Another thing to note is the RJ11 does not deactivate the slave eye. Only the 1/8 connector locks out the slave eye. You mention in the video you are usually shooting later. Does light come in that window at that time?

I see the B400 is straight to the wall, and one 800 is in a power strip. The other 800 was not clearly shown exactly how it was plugged in. While not generally a problem, try removing the power strip(s) from the equation.

You may want to use an AC ground tester and/or a different circuit.

Grasping at straws, you may want to check the battery in the remotes.

You are always welcome to send a unit in, however we cannot guarantee being able to replicate the problem. This type of issue is often found in noisy or bad AC supply, which may or may not be from the outlet. Power cords and power strips can cause this as well.

The other 800 is right in to the wall like the 400. No light in the window, late meaning late night. The unit shown doing it, had the slider at full, modeling light set to on and tracking on. It did it on the V-mini, but that was on the bad battery, I have not tried with the new. I'll plug in to that tonight and test again on vid see if I can narrow it down some more or at least eliminate variables.

Wow...they're haunted! :o

Have you tried sitting them there w/ the 3.5mm stub plugs in to disable the optical trigger?
And do you move the radiopoppers around?
Seems like one AB800 and one AB400 randomly pop?

I pretty frequently use the CC with Alienbees connected to Vagabonds, so I have the model lamps turned off.

I finally tracked down a solution, although I'm not sure what the cause is.

I must have been mistaken that it was happening with triggers off, because after a LOT of testing I couldn't get them to do it without the triggers connected at all.

But I did narrow it down to a single light that had the problem, the others were tripping optically from it.

I solved it by turning on Error Control on the receiver. I don't know exactly what it does, and this is the first time since I've had the units I have ever touched the settings, but it solved the issue completely. I also have no idea why anything changed over time but it did.

Before this I tried swapping everything out one by one - power cord, trigger, connection cable, bulbs, outlets.

A guess is the error control reduces what interference will do to the remote (i.e. false tripping). These remotes are on the 2.4GHz band, and if susceptible to interference (i.e. with no error control), then just about anything could be added and you would never know it. Maybe your neighbor got a new router or cordless phone.

For what it is worth, CyberSync does employ full time error control, and does not exhibit false firings (in my extensive experience). I am noting this, as they are also on the 2.4GHz band, and there may be some who read this and become concerned about this possibility.


Glad to hear everything is resolved, however.