Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

I've had my Alien Bee 1600 for about 4 years, and I'm having two problems:

1) I'm having trouble with the sync jack on the back. The contacts seem to be loose inside, which makes it difficult for me to connect up a sync cord. Whenever I rotate the sync cord to get a better connection, it ends up popping the flash a bunch of times. Obviously, this is not good.
I've thought about replacing the sync jack myself, but I also thought about the possibility of using the RC11 phone jack, plugging in a short cord, and using an adapter so that I don't have to take the unit apart. Is it possible to get hold of the pin configuration of the jack, so that I could use an RJ11 connection for my sync?

2) The last time I shot, I heard a random "snap!" sound of arcing in the unit. Everything seemed okay for a long time. But then later, I heard a snap sound again and saw (?) what seemed like arcing between something inside and the metal plate on front, through the tiny gap between the front plate and what's behind it. I realize that this means I have to send it in pretty soon, but do you have any idea of what might be causing this? There is no pattern to the problem, so I'm having trouble figuring out what it might be.

We cannot provide the RJ11 pinout as that is proprietary, though the sync jack can be repaired. If you are getting an arcing, You can pull the flash tube out and inspect the legs. This is typically where arcing occurs. If the legs are clean, it can be reinstalled. If they are charred (on the metal exterior portion), the whole light will need to come in, at which time the sync jack can also be repaired.