I mostly a budget shooter. Buy a lot of used gear.

Recently bought a sea&sea ys-d1.

It turns on. Red light. Can be switched to blue( slave mode). Focusing light turns on and off.

The only problem is it won’t flash. I got it connected to a TG-5 with housing and sea&sea Fiber optic cable.

Is there a quick test I can do to know if the flash bulb is done?

@JapanDiver We have people on this site who can provide much better information, but I would check these things: 1) make certain you can hear the capacitor charging, 2) that a flash is transmitted through the fiber cable and 3) there is nothing blocking light transmission to the sensor on the flash. Also, make certain you are using the right plug at the underside of the strobe. Alternatively, you can use the 5-pin cable if you’re motivated, to see if that triggers the strobe.

buena suerte,

Craig

Thank you very much.

I can hear the charging sound. And it turns red after a it charged up.

The cable is fine. It works with my other strobes.

And I don’t have a way to test the 5-pin connection.

I have a feeling that the flash bulb might be dead.

8 hours ago, JapanDiver said:

Thank you very much.

I can hear the charging sound. And it turns red after a it charged up.

The cable is fine. It works with my other strobes.

And I don’t have a way to test the 5-pin connection.

I have a feeling that the flash bulb might be dead.

Note that S&S strobes used to be notorious for having low sensitivity on their optical trigger and were quite sensitive to fibre optic cable quality. You can bypass this by using an infra-red remote control. Just point the remote's LED directly into the fibre optic port on the strobe and press any of the buttons. the infra red signals will trigger strobes quite easily. A remote for a TV, DVD player, aircon unit etc is fine as long as it has an LED you point at the device.

Tried that but it did not trigger the strobe.

Thank you very much everyone for helping.

Probably the flash bulb is out!

Last resort is to trigger the strobe directly on the 5-pin connector. You connect X with Gnd. I found this info on an obscure site:

https://impulsite.ru/viewtopic.php?t=1245

The link above also shows the connectors for other systems, but only follow it if you really need to. It‘s more to cite my source than to invite you to click it.

Shorting out the triggering contacts should trigger the strobe. This trick can also be used on topside strobes. Some (mostly older and studio) models will generate a significant arc. Make sure to have the strobe power,on for a while to reform the capacitors - 30 minutes should work.

8 hours ago, Klaus said:

Last resort is to trigger the strobe directly on the 5-pin connector. You connect X with Gnd. I found this info on an obscure site:

https://impulsite.ru/viewtopic.php?t=1245

However this site from Reef photo suggests it may not work for a YS-D1, see item 3) :

Reef Photo & Video

Troubleshooting Strobes With Electrical Sync

Few things can be more frustrating on a trip than when your usually reliable electrically triggered strobes suddenly stop working.

Ikelite has a similar page for their strobes.