Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

Hey guys, I've read that "The slave tripper is disengaged whenever a sync cord or dummy plug is inserted into the sync jack.". I'm currently using Pocket Wizard Tranceivers to trigger the ABs but I still notice people's P&Ss triggering the strobes. Is anyone else experiencing this and how are you managing to disable the built in optical receivers in the AB units?

Thx!!!!

Plugging in a PW to each AB should indeed disable the AB slave trippers. If you are using multiple ABs with multiple, test by pressing the test button on one AB and see if any of the others fire . . . they shouldn't.

Long shot, but do you have a speedlite also connected to a PW at the same time?

Nope. Just a PW on my camera and one one each AB strobe head. I never knew that having something plugged into the 1/8th jack of the AB was supposed to disable it until I was getting annoyed at people's P&Ss triggering the optical slave and I did a search on how to disable it. However, the optical slaves are alive and well even with the 1/8th cord from the PW plugged into the AB... Boo.

Which pocket wizards?

Pocket Wizard Plus II Transceivers
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/4 ... Radio.html

I have ordered a review of this in the testing of current AB production. In the meantime, a quick workaround would be a piece of black electrical tape covering the slave window.

Perfect. I will use try out this method in the meantime! I actually need helping knowing exactly where to tape to try this out... ! Thx!

Tape over the 1/4" white circle labeled "Slave", The sensor is right behind that window.

I asked my staff to look into this. Here is the response I got from David (who is "Tech" here):

Paul,
This lady has only two bees purchased from us, both in January 2005. The
lock out circuit is still in place. Jan 05 is before my time, and Joe is out
of the office today and tomorrow, so I cannot say if there was a run of Bees
that were problematic in this regard.

and from my Chief Engineer:

Paul,

There has been no problem with the lockout barring a total failure of the sync jack, or use of a dummy plug in which there is a short circuit or low resistance existing between the tip and ring, or tip and sleeve, in the case of a mono plug.
This is tested in burn-in for all units.

Thanks for your time,

Mike

So I have to suspect the slave lockout switch in the sync jack has simply worn out. We can replace the sync jack(s) for you or you can tape over the slave cell window as suggested

Sorry for the problem.