Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

I wanted to give some honest feedback about my experience with a relatively large (just shy of $4k) order of Einsteins & accessories. The short version is I am definitely unsatisfied with my delivery, satisfied overall with my experiences with Paul C. Buff, Inc, and I believe I may have discovered a defect that some are reporting in this thread.

The Good: Paul C. Buff, Inc. customer and technical service are both amazing. I've had repeated contact with them over the past few months, inquiring to keep them updated on the status of when everything would ship. I would always get a honest answer from Vicki on what to expect. When my order arrived damaged by UPS, and with defective parts Kimberly politely and without hassle gathered all the necessary information from me and I am told replacements for everything will ship within 1-2 business days. I don't even have to deal with the hassle of shipping back non-electronic defective or broken items. The electronic items I am shipping back is at no charge to me.

The items that did arrive in good and working condition seem to be very well made, especially for the bargain price-point considering other light modifiers I have seen and used. I was extremely impressed with the overall construction of both the Foldable Softboxes, and the PLMs.

The Bad: My 22" Beauty Dish arrive completely crushed on one side. It's shipped basically as is, a round object in a rectangle box with very little shipping material to protect it. While UPS shouldn't have crushed the box, I also think that if the Beauty Dish was shipped in a cut out piece of foam, it would be a lot less likely to be crushed so easily.

The 22" Retro Laser Reflector arrived with a few dings, and also does not lay flat. This time the box didn't appear damaged, so I have no idea when or how the damage occurred. To be honest I don't know how much, if at all, this would effect the quality of light from it, but on the positive side Kimberly was quick to send me a replacement anyhow stating that I paid for new items and I should get things that were new. I greatly appreciated the sentiment because I honestly would have kept this if it worked properly.

One of my four Einsteins arrived unable to flash properly. The short version is that most of the time, even after waiting for an extended period of time, the ready light would never switch to green, and the flash would not fire. I switched flash tubes, and ruled this out as a problem.

One of my four Einsteins arrived with a broken Pyrex dome. I don't know if the little clips holding the dome tend to bend out (or 'loosen'), during shipment causing the domes to rattle and slip. If they don't, this could easily be avoided by bending the clips inward before placing the Pyrex Domes on. I did this after the Einsteins arrived to test it, and afterwards none of my Pyrex Domes rattled anymore. Three out of the four domes (including the broken one), rattled before I adjusted the clips.

The Cyber Commander unit arrived DOA. Would not show anything on the screen with the MiniSD card in or out, or with two different sets of batteries used to test it.

The Ugly: All three of the three Positioning Shafts for my 64" PLMs arrived with improperly drilled holes for the screw to attach to the ring. One was obviously completely stripped on the inside, and the other two were not drilled to the proper depth making it impossible to securely tighten down the Speed Ring. I could not do it by hand, with a screwdriver, or even with a powered screwdriver.

The remaining Einsteins all ended up with the same problem. The 'finger' locking system for attaching Speed Rings failed on all three. One failed immediately, which I first reported. Then as I was putting away the second one, it failed. After it failed I got suspicious that maybe something was assembled incorrectly, there was a design flaw, or a part was defective, so I started using the third one over and over. After a few dozen uses, it also failed.

What happens is the lever that you push to release the 'fingers' from a Speed Ring would eventually jam, so it would not automatically spring back into the 'locked' position. In all three you would eventually feel some resistance and hear a clicking noise similar to a ratchet when pushing the lever in either direction. With it not automatically springing back into the locked position, I would guess that even when my 'fingers' were in working condition that it would not provide enough tension to get a firm grip on the heavier and awkward light modifiers. In fact I had an 86" PLM fall off, while I luckily had hand on both the PLM and Einstein, otherwise it would have caused some damage. Initially I thought that maybe I missed one of the fingers when mounting it (as it is huge and somewhat awkward for one person), but I was fairly confident I hadn't and now believe it is because of the problems I had with the mounting device on all three of my remaining lights. Similar problems are being reported in this thread. Since all of my lights are almost sequential serial numbers, it's hard for me to tell if this is a short term problem like one guy assembling them wrong, or a small batch of problem parts, or a design or casting flaw.

Is It Worth It?: So some of you who have read all of this may wonder if I think all these headaches and problems are worth it. The short version is while I am disappointed that I basically still have no lights to use, I still think it's worth it. Hopefully I am an exception and the problems with the 64" Positioning Shafts and the Einstein's Speed Ring mount were both just small batch issues.

The bottom line is no one is matching the price point of the Einsteins and light modifiers for remotely the same level of quality and features. I believe things always go wrong, and I have experience dealing with both Elinchrom (through B&H), and Paul C. Buff. My two experiences could not be more diametrically opposed. With Elinchrom and B&H it took me months to get replacement rods for a light modifier, as they shipped the wrong size with one, and it was like pulling teeth the whole time. I was pulled into the middle of an argument about whose fault it was that I was not getting my replacements in a reasonable time frame. In fact, they initially wanted me to pay to ship them rods back (which I promptly refused). Paul C. Buff, Inc. is the exact opposite experience. I call, they take my word for it, and take car of my problems in a timely manner at no cost to me.

I hope that by sharing this Paul C. Buff, Inc. can figure out if they have a defect or quality control problem and they can resolve it. I also want people who read this forum and may be on the fence or still waiting to realize that in the worst case scenario (which I think I either had or came close to having), what realistically will be done. Despite all of the negatives, I am still at the moment a satisfied customer.

I'm starting to get worried too. PCB lights used to be made in USA, now the Einstiens are "assembled" in the USA.

China has no quality control. Yea, it's cheap but is it worth dealing with the sloppy work that China has to offer.

PCB's first generation of radio slaves were made in China. By Paul's own words, he dropped the chinese manufacture to go American due to quality that he couldn't control from China. I hope these new lights don't turn out to be just more junk made in China.

I have no doubt that PCB has had quality control issues and will continue to have them by manufacturing in China, but we benefit with lower prices. I highly doubt he could make and reasonably sell an Einstein for $500 completely in the USA.

However I know the two products that I believe have a quality control issues (the PLM v2 Positioning Shafts and the E640 Speedring Mount) are also some of the first ones off the line of this version. Odds are whatever the problem is, it will be resolved quickly and then we can see if quality control is a continuous issue after the initial quirks are worked out.

Like I said in my post, the most important thing is how problems are resolved. I gave my laundry list of problems today about 2 hours before close of business and ordered a few replacement parts and two 7" reflectors that I forgot to order, but tonight I received notification that 3 boxes totaling 15lbs have shipped.

Also from my limited time testing the lights, aside from the minor issue of pyrex domes being shipped improperly (resolved all ready by PCB) and the major issue of the Speedring Mounting issues, everything else worked flawlessly and felt well constructed. The buttons are responsive, the plastic feels a lot sturdier than some I've seen (such as the Elinchrom D-Lites).

Most likely the issue is just a single defective part, improper assembly, or a design flaw that will be fixed. I'm not worried about the final quality. I am just a little frustrated that after waiting stuff is shipping defective.

We build all electronic items as much as possible in the U.S., Vagabonds being the sole exception in this post. All other circuit boards are designed and made in the US. Some housings are US made, some are from China, and they have not been an issue. Final assembly is done in the US. The front panel on the E640 is new from any other front panel we have ever used, even version 1 Einstein, because Einstein is so different than any other light we have made. Using older, time-tested face plates is not possible, otherwise we would be using them. Any innovative design is prone to have problems from the seemingly simple to unexpectedly complex. We truley do appreciate everyone's patience as we perfect our products. There is no need to worry about our lights turning into "Chinese junk", we are dedicated to keeping as much in the US as possible.

Einsteins are not "assembled in USA", they are Made in USA . . . Kansas and Nashville. You have wrong info here.

My first (of two -- one's still back-ordered) Einsteins arrived Friday with the frosted dome loose and rattling, but not broken. I set it up to test, got a few flashes out of it, and then it just faded away: the tube now gives these pathetic little flickers whenever it's triggered, and sometimes the circuitry detects that and cuts the voltage to the modeling light, sometimes it doesn't.

I've been on the wait list since April, and I really needed this light for an upcoming, job, so it's a bit disappointing. I do have a lot of confidence in PCB service, and hope for a speedy resolution once I can call tomorrow.

Oh, and while I was testing, the flash meter on my CyberCommander started malfunctioning. I guess I'll have to set up one of my WLs and try to figure out what's going on.

To dmfrank -

Yikes. a confusing similarity of forum names.

Regarding your Einstein that won't flash, you probably have a bad flash tube, not a bad Einstein. I had one of mine delivered with a bad tube. It didn't flash, but the modeling light dimmed nonethless. Tried a new spare tube I had ordered, and, bingo, all worked perfectly. Let PCB know about it, and they'll probably send you a new tube.

One small thing, be careful when removing the tube, due to the tight fit of the connector rods to their associated holes in the head. And, it may take you a few minutes of extra effort to plug in your new tube. It's a little hard to see if you have the rods properly lined up to the holes. Be patient, and you shall be rewarded.

Of course contact us on Monday. We will get you taken care of ASAP. Have you tried the Einstein without the CSXCV installed? If not, try that to ensure you are not getting any unexpeced signals/commands from CC.

As for the CC's lightmeter, what characteristics is it exhibiting?

Thanks so much for the reply! I will definitely call tomorrow.

I did test the unit without the CSXCV. I thought it might be having a problem with some interactions with the CC, so I pushed that quick setup button (which set it to a different channel from the CC), unplugged it and plugged it back in, chose the "bootload" option on the diagnostics screen, and took out the CSXCV. All to no avail. When I would boot it up, the modeling light would behave normally until I fired the flash, then it would dim and stay dim. The diagnostics screen showed what seemed like a reasonable % for the flash (variously between 53% and 65%), but showed that the modeling light % had been reduced to between 0% and 10%. This morning I turned it on, and now the modeling light does not change in that way.

The tube does fire, but only with the most feeble flicker. I'm not 100% sure, but I think it kept getting dimmer and dimmer while I was testing. It fires feebly even though the diagnostic screen shows a fairly high % for the flash. (Of course I am only guessing at what those numbers mean. :-) ) I removed and reinstalled the tube as well, with no change in behavior.

The CC symptom was that the flash meter always metered at the same amount, usually something odd like f/22 even when there was little to no light coming from the flash. However, I set up my WL1600 this morning and calibrated the CC against my Sekonic, and it was working fine.

Is there any kind of super-duper hard reset I could do on the Einstein, just to make sure this isn't a software problem?

There is nothing more than an easy set function without the CSXCV (other than firmware reflash, which is really not necessary).