Well it's Murphy's law

Just arrived to Bali for 1 month of underwater photography, mainly macro, and one of my two MF-1 seemingly died.

Blue light blinking, a few seconds later red light blinking, then starts to flash erratically.

Never a problem with those strobes, no idea what could go wrong.

Any help??

Thanks in advance.

no Idea what is wrong with your strobe, but I do know if you are around amed I can likely get you a strobe to use. DM me

Have you tried swapping the batteries between the 2 strobes, just to check it's a strobe issue and not a battery issue?

6 hours ago, cerich said:

no Idea what is wrong with your strobe, but I do know if you are around amed I can likely get you a strobe to use. DM me

Thank you so much for the offer. Fortunatelly I also have with me a couple of Inon Z330 intended for my WA dives. I am more used to the Mf-1s to macro, but today the 330s have got me out of trouble.

I still prefer the Mf-1s for macro due to the size, but the 330s do the job.

Best Regards.

54 minutes ago, Yorkie88 said:

Have you tried swapping the batteries between the 2 strobes, just to check it's a strobe issue and not a battery issue?

I have about ten 18650 with me for this trip. Tried with five of them, same behaviour. All batterys are fully charged, so not a battery issue.

I'm afraid I'll have to send It to service.

Thanks for the suggest.

Best Regards.

The only solution is the mf-2. The mf-1 is just fatally flawed and not generally reliable.

2 hours ago, Dave_Hicks said:

The only solution is the mf-2. The mf-1 is just fatally flawed and not generally reliable.

Hello David,

Unfortunatelly I think that upgrading to an Mf-2 is my only option.

Thank you anyway.

8 minutes ago, wetdreams said:

Hello David,

Unfortunatelly I think that upgrading to an Mf-2 is my only option.

Thank you anyway.

That is exactly what I said. 🤔

11 hours ago, Dave_Hicks said:

That is exactly what I said. 🤔

Oh yes, David, of course, I was just agreeing with your statement.

I had just been trying to get the flash working for the umpteenth time, with the same results; you can imagine my frustration.

I was simply reiterating what you had written.

Best regards.

By the way, I want to thank everyone who offered to lend me a strobe here in Bali or even from Europe. Luckily, I have other strobes with me so I can continue enjoying photography on my vacation.

Thanks to everyone, and best regards.

8 hours ago, wetdreams said:

By the way, I want to thank everyone who offered to lend me a strobe here in Bali or even from Europe. Luckily, I have other strobes with me so I can continue enjoying photography on my vacation.

Thanks to everyone, and best regards.

One of the really nice things about this community is the mutual support folks offer. Long may that remain!

Long story short, The Mf-1 has a manufacturer issue, and they break down easily. If It is not too old, Backscatter might replace for free, since I have seen it with other users. Contact them and cross your fingers.

I've had my mf-1 for about two years with at least 200 dives - never had an issue.

A few friends have also put hundreds on their mf-1s

I don't intend to come of as contrarian but I was not even aware the mf-1 had issues and I frequent the usual underwater photography forums .

Hey @wetdreams

Hope that you get it sorted, Backscatter are brilliant with their support.

Have a great time and look forward to seeing your images.

Sorry to hear about your MF-1 strobe failing. It’s never any fun to have your equipment stop functioning and we understand your frustration.

One thing that I would ask you to test and check is what happens if you use the battery and/or battery handle from your other MF-1 strobe in this unit (sounds like you have based on previous replies in this thread)? Does the behavior of that strobe change? What happens when you do the reverse and use the battery and battery handle from the questionable unit on the other functional strobe? 

From your description of the blue blinking light turning to red blinking, this to me points to a possible fault with one or more components on the internal circuitry. If this is actually the case, there is unfortunately no quick and easy field fix and the strobe will have to be evaluated at either our service center in Monterey or sent to an authorized Dealer. The closest Backscatter dealer to your location in Bali would be DiveSea Indonesia. While they are located on a different island, they can potentially ship a replacement strobe out to you relatively quickly if you wanted to order another. At this point, these MF-1 strobes are out of their normal warranty period. Here is their website: https://www.divesea.co.id/pages/contact-us.

We have reached out to DiveSea Indonesia from our end to alert them to your situation and give them a heads up, but I encourage you to reach out to them yourself as well.

Feel free to email our Service Department directly at [email protected] if you wish to discuss the issue further.

23 minutes ago, TimG said:

One of the really nice things about this community is the mutual support folks offer. Long may that remain!

On 5/18/2025 at 11:41 PM, Maria Munn said:

Hey @wetdreams

Hope that you get it sorted, Backscatter are brilliant with their support.

Have a great time and look forward to seeing your images.

Thank You María, they already contacted me, and I am sure the'll do their best.

Best Regards.

13 hours ago, Backscatter Service Dept said:

Sorry to hear about your MF-1 strobe failing. It’s never any fun to have your equipment stop functioning and we understand your frustration.

One thing that I would ask you to test and check is what happens if you use the battery and/or battery handle from your other MF-1 strobe in this unit (sounds like you have based on previous replies in this thread)? Does the behavior of that strobe change? What happens when you do the reverse and use the battery and battery handle from the questionable unit on the other functional strobe? 

From your description of the blue blinking light turning to red blinking, this to me points to a possible fault with one or more components on the internal circuitry. If this is actually the case, there is unfortunately no quick and easy field fix and the strobe will have to be evaluated at either our service center in Monterey or sent to an authorized Dealer. The closest Backscatter dealer to your location in Bali would be DiveSea Indonesia. While they are located on a different island, they can potentially ship a replacement strobe out to you relatively quickly if you wanted to order another. At this point, these MF-1 strobes are out of their normal warranty period. Here is their website: https://www.divesea.co.id/pages/contact-us.

We have reached out to DiveSea Indonesia from our end to alert them to your situation and give them a heads up, but I encourage you to reach out to them yourself as well.

Feel free to email our Service Department directly at [email protected] if you wish to discuss the issue further.

Thank you for your response.

Unfortunatelly I did the battery test you mention, with no results. The batterys are ok, and the Mf-1 keeps the same.

I thank your interest, but I think I'll wait until been back to Spain to send the unit for service.

Luckily I have with me my WA strobes, not so handy as the Mf-1s for macro but usable.

Thank you again and Best Regards.

Edited May 20May 20 by wetdreams

In addition to my previous answer, I completely disassembled mine (it wasn't easy) and resoldered all the connections. I reassembled it and it was working again. What was wrong? I have no idea, all I know is that it's working again :)

15 hours ago, Crasoner said:

In addition to my previous answer, I completely disassembled mine (it wasn't easy) and resoldered all the connections. I reassembled it and it was working again. What was wrong? I have no idea, all I know is that it's working again :)

A bit extreme, but I don't discard It completely...

Back at home, I decided to disassemble the strobe and try local repairing (me). I thought It was nont worth sending It to U.S., as it is out of waranty, cost of reparation, billing....

I found the source of failure (water in through the power knob, who destroyed one of the big capacitors).

So, new O-rings, new capacitor, soldering.... Wait, wait, wait.

Someone forgot printing the capacitor's specification markings (voltage, capacitance, etc...) when built the strobe, so I am unable to find the correct capacitor in order to replace it.

The markings in the capacitor seem to mean nothing related it's specifications. I did an extensive searching in Google, without success.

I went to two local electronics stores, but both weren't able to give me an answer.

So, if someone knows the information regarding that capacitor, or knows what that numbers mean, that would be greatly appreciated.

Otherwise, I'm afraid the strobe will sadly end up in the recycling bin.

Thanks in advance!!!

Do you have a multimeter? Could you measure the remaining one?

8 minutes ago, Yorkie88 said:

Do you have a multimeter? Could you measure the remaining one?

that will get you the capacitance, but I think there's probably some other parameters to get a capacitor which does what it is supposed to and lasts. I found this site, I expect if you find the capacitance, ordering replacements from here might be a good bet. Perhaps you could contact them with the capacitance and dimensions and see if they are able to assist:

https://www.xenonflashtubes.com/photo-flash-capacitors_21

Also I assume you are aware of the hazards these capacitors present, they store a lot of energy at hazardous voltages and need to be discharged before working on them. The limiting factor is likely to be the external dimensions, it has to fit in the space available.

5 hours ago, Yorkie88 said:

Do you have a multimeter? Could you measure the remaining one?

Hi Yorkie,

Thanks for your help.

Yes, I have one and I thought on that too, but as Cris states, there are other parameters, as voltage and range... And I should unsolder the remaining one...

Anyway, I'll try this before the the trash bin option...

Regards!!!

4 hours ago, Chris Ross said:

I found this site, I expect if you find the capacitance,

Thank you, I'll dive into It, and see if I get some information.

5 hours ago, Chris Ross said:

Also I assume you are aware of the hazards these capacitors present, they store a lot of energy at hazardous voltages and need to be discharged before working on them. The limiting factor is likely to be the external dimensions, it has to fit in the space available.

Yes, first thing I did was discharging the capacitors...

Thanks for your help Chris.