Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

This has started happening recently, so I thought I'd try a post here. I use the cyber commander with my Einstein units and the CSXCV. I have a CST on the camera, and that fires the lights with no problems. Recently, however, the Cyber Commander has had intermittent problems with firing a light when attempting to meter. I had a shoot last night and did a test meter with my assistant--worked perfectly. My client arrives, I press the button to meter, and nothing. Try it again, nothing. Luckily, I had a Sekonic with me as back up. Any idea what might be happening?

First, does the joystick seem to operate normally otherwise? i.e. you can scroll left/right, press in to enter, etc.? Will the Cyber Commander update the flash meter when pressed? (inside, it will likely stay at <f/1.0'0, but outside in the daylight it should register).

Will the CC fire the flash when mounted to the hotshoe of the camera?

When you make power changes to the lights, do the lights respond appropriately, or do you get red outlines on the vertical bars of the Cyber Commander?

Be sure to double check your frequency. If you open a saved setting that contains a different frequency, then the lights will not adjust/trigger.

I changed the batteries and that helped. It's still a bit disconcerting, because every other type of functionality you asked about was working except for firing/metering. Does the latest firmware update make the CC less sensitive to battery depletion? I would hate to think of wasting good batteries just because they are getting a little low.

Strange. That is not typically the behavior exhibited by a unit that has low batteries. Generally, low batteries would flash a "LOW BATT" indicator, and really low batteries would cause the unit to reboot.




It does not alter the voltage threshold of the processor. It can increase battery life on some units. I believe all unit that would be affected would be the type with external antenna, though I do not know if ALL units with an external antenna would be affected.

Does your CC have an external antenna? Did you notice if the unit rebooted when you attempted to meter?

It happened on the shoot I mentioned and again yesterday. Then I changed the batteries and it worked normally.

Each time this happened, were there new batteries each time?

How far apart were these instances?

Also, do you have the external antenna version?