Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

is there a way to create another menu under the advanced configuration to disable other channels in the main setting? I think that would be a great feature to have in the cybercommander's menu for future firmware updates.

Please expound. I am not quite following what you are needing. I doubt anything will be added, but I may be able to help with current features.

It would be nice if you could disable unused channels/groups as an element of a setup - such that they could not even be scrolled to. So if you had 2 strobes, you could just have the ALL channel, CH 1, and CH2. And scrolling right or left with left joystick would just cycle among those 3.

Not sure if OP meant that but I know it'd be a nice option.

I understand what you are saying, but each "little" change like this requires months of thought and programming and debugging and tens of thousands of dollars in development costs.

I can probably name a couple dozen things I might do different "next time". You have to remember CC is an extremely high tech product we sell for $180. What would the Euro companies charge for Cyber Commander capability . . . . several thousand bucks?

But we are listening.

CC is a great product as is - so awesome when paired with the Einstein! My comments are always suggestions - not complaints.

Considering the resources you must devote to modifying such a sophisticated device, I know you'd want any new features to be substantial enough to justify a higher price or more market share.

So in my opinion, the best big feature to add would be something resembling TTL - which I assume could technically work - at least when CC is used with Einsteins. Or how about allowing the CC to function as an optical trigger that can optionally ignore TTL preflashes? It would be nice if such a mode could be incorporated into all the monolights, but if it was just built into the CC 2.0 then you'd have glorious backward compatibility with every single light that the CC can control - which is pretty much every light made. It would allow you to blend *any* strobe you own into a TTL setup. Seems like everyone would want such a product...

On a more cosmetic level, being able to select shutter speed and ISO by 1/2 or 1/3 stops and being able to display metered apertures using 1/2 or 1/3 stops would probably be the biggest improvement in user-friendliness.

Thanks for all the great products - I would take the frequent suggestions for improvements as a big complement. People can see that PCB is an innovative company where new, big ideas are actually researched and implemented!

please don't over exaggerate. The investment to develop the cybercommander is part of the costs associated in product creation. Updates and further product development advance the features of the product and correct bugs/issues that arise from the initial launch. (every product has this). It's how the manufacturer continues to develop their product to better serve the users that creates a competitive advantage over the "euro" companies.

To address the original question, yes that was what I was referring to: all, ch1, ch2 (up to the amount of lights I have) then be able to cycle into the group settings.

On stuff I've worked with (networking equipment, wind measurement equipment, minicomputers, supercomputers), changing firmware requires not only testing of that feature but testing backwards compatibility with anything the hardware talks to, which in some cases is easily a week or two or months of testing time that can tie up a few people off and on. Break down the time/salary of the people involved and it's easily $10-20K for adding a minor feature to a magnitude more for something a bit more complex and if it involves hardware changes and FCC testing, it's double that :-P
Just clarifying a bit what's involved in a change on a hardware/software product :-)

No exaggeration here. Walk a mile in my shoes. We're not Apple and don't have thousands of engineers and programmers and hundreds of millions of customers.

After having the 2 lights and the CC for 24 hours and whacking away at all of these pieces of equipment with everything I could throw at it in that time, impressed would be an understatement.

The ONLY flaw (and it's rather annoying)I have found with all of this is the ratchet/swivel joint between the CC hot shoe and the body of the CC. It's weak design or the ability to lock it at any angle is not good.

I can see more investment in PCB products in the future and have had more issues with "Higher End" equipment before. The whole package redefines 'bang for the buck'.