Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

I'm having some issues with the b1600 not going off at random times. At one shoot I narrowed it down to a faulty power extension cord, replaced the cord and then had no issues for the remainder of the shoot. Next shoot I started having the same issue, but not as often. In other words, the flash failed often the time with the faulty cord but only randomly the next time. I did throwaway the faulty cord, which was very old. The other cords I have are new and well taken care of :) btw, I use with the CC, Canon 5D at 200 / sec.

This has been a hard problem to debug. I tested the b1600 the CC trigger that sits on the camera by pressing the test button and could NOT get to fail. I'm not sure that my testing was thorough enough to say with certainly, however.

I wonder if recycle time is part of the problem in that most of my experience is with b800's and I'm just not giving the thing long enough to recycle. I also wondered if somehow the camera itself might be the cause (sync speed?).

2 questions.

1) What kind of testing should I do to determine the cause of the issue?

2) Is the recycle time of the b1600 affected by power output level. ie, if the light output is turned down to say 3/4's, does it still require 2 secs to recycle?

Thanks for the help,

Jeff

First, the light will still fire even if not fully recycled, so not triggering is not a symptom of recycle time. Lower power will also reduce the time needed for recycle pretty much on a 1:1 ratio (i.e. if full=2 secs., then 1/2 = 1 sec, etc.).

Are you using only one light? If not, do other lights fire when this one does not? What FW do you have in the CC? What percentage do you find this is happening?

Don't know the FM off hand, out of town. I can check this weekend. But I have not updated since I bought. Just 1 light, the b1600. Randomly happening, no real pattern. It would not fire, I'd check with the test, it would work, then press the shutter again and sometimes would would work and sometimes not. I found if I just kept pressing the shutter it would eventually start working again and be fine for a while.

Thanks for the help,

Jeff

You can try a different frequency. Hard to say if it would help, but it will not hurt. Otherwise, it sounds like a connectivity issue. Flex the CC around in the hot shoe, as well as pull up on it and slide it fore and aft. See if gentle pressure in any of those directions can lift the bottom pin of the hotshoe contact. Also double check that all the cords are are firmly inserted in each of the connection points.