Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

I have several units, a bunch of 800s and a 400, that are all going on 6-7 years old now. Lately, and especially today during a shoot where I had to pull out 4 of them, I have found them to be popping off by themselves. The only thing in common I have found is age.

Sometimes they pop once every few minutes, sometimes more frequently, it seems to be fairly random.

It does not matter if they are on house or battery power. It does not matter is there is a radio receiver attached or not. It does not matter if modeling lights are on or not. The studio is dark aside from the modeling lights, nothing is tripping optically for those with no Rx in.

Is there something to do with age as far as the internal circuitry? Should I be conditioning them somehow in between uses? Some units only get used once a year or so.

I tried searching but couldn't come up with anything.

It is curious that it is both battery and AC.
Do they fire by themselves when only one at a time is on or when more than one is used? Any remote being used?
From what I have understood, this kind of problem is usually electric line noise or interference in the remote. However, when I did have this problem I also had a cell phone in the area and I suspect that might have been my problem (I've had phones that interfered with any speaker withing 5-10 feet of them). Might be something to try till the tech answers.

James

It's definitely internal.

Right now I have two 800s with remotes and a 400 all alone. The 400 and one of the 800's have been doing it all day.

I used to have the issue with the real old PCB remotes, but since switching to radio poppers radio interference has never been an issue. But this has nothing to do with it, it is doing it without remotes at all, and no it doesn't matter if it's a single light or multiple.

Is it a steady pop as soon as they are turned on? Or is it a random pop every so often? Also, are you using the Radio Poppers with the telephone connection or the standard sync connection?

Random and it has nothing to do with the rps it happens with a bare light.

Can you try a different power cord on one or more lights? Is there a power strip in use that may be common, or an extension cord that may be common to the lights?

Do they pop individually, or do all lights in the set fire at the same time?

It has nothing to do with a power cord, strip or outlet. Currently there are three lights setup, all independent, all in separate outlets - just happens to be how my studio is working right now. They pop independently, randomly. Two more so than the other, but I couldn't tell you what the age difference is between them all, I have picked them up at different times over the years.

This is really bugging me so I'm trying to track it down. I've started a video narrowing variables down. Of course, now, it's NOT doing it at all. I'll post back when I figure something out...

OMG this is beyond frustrating! I filmed for over 5 minutes without a single pop, I JUST walked back in after typing the last post to hut down the lights and it does it. It's so completely random!

HAHA got one on cam :) Video rendering...