quick help ... Titan please

Hey Titan shooters out there - I'm doing a seminar in St. Vincent at the moment. One of our shooters has a Titan that caught a bit of water 2 days ago. Camera fine. Now we can't get shutter speed/aperture to record via handles and strobes won't fire. Is there a field repair anyone might suggest? No spare housing parts here, unfortunately.

Any quick suggestions appreciated. I'd love to save his last 2 days of shooting.

Steve

Steven,

I sent an email to the folks at LMI to see if they have any advice.

Cheers

James

Do the LED's power up when the camera is mounted to the tray? Problem is pretty easy to isolate, either the grips are not sending the infrared signal, the interface board in the housing is damaged or the main board in the tray is damaged.

Testing: First make sure the shutter release control (adjustable) is not constantly pressing the release button. Then Revove the handles and point them into the lens of a camcorder and press any of the buttons, you'll be able to see the infrared signals on the camcorder's display. If they don't work then open up the grips, replace batteries if necessary and or clean the board.

Interface board in the housing is easily removed for inspection of the connector and cleaning if necessary.

Last choice is the main board inside the camera tray. If the LED's will not power up this board most likely needs to be replaced. I have a complete tray in stock that I can next day air to you.

For future trips, L&M makes a Field Service Kit ($500) for this housing that includes all the circuit boards and many other handy items to keep this housing going after a flood.

One of our shooters has a Titan that caught a bit of water 2 days ago.  Camera fine.  Now we can't get shutter speed/aperture to record via handles and strobes won't fire. Is there a field repair anyone might suggest?  No spare housing parts here, unfortunately.

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Hi Steve,

I had a similar issue with my Titan about 6 months ago after a flood, and I had to replace the small board in the housing that mates with the camera sled to get things working correctly again. However, I was able to get the strobes to fire (but not able to adjust anything) by carefully cleaning the contacts where the sled connects to the housing circuit board and where the sled pins connect to the camera. There was a lot of "green gunk" at both points due to electolasis from the salt water.

Good Luck,

Thanks All! Dave ... that was an extraordinarily helpful reply. Will go to work and see if we can get him back in the water shooting.

BTW ... the flood was 100% user error, and I should have dug into the housing myself right away rather than assuming it was OK and then discovering we had issues. Just wanted to make it known it was not a LMI issue, but one of our own making. Now, we'll see if we can resurrect.

Steve

Final analysis, probably a handle issue, but Dave can be the judge of that when he gets the housing for repair next week. Lessons learned:

1. With any water intrusion, clean everything thoroughly and quickly (Duh).

2. Bring plenty tools, batteries, and any parts that could go bad (Duh, again).

3. In the analog days, with a group like ours there would always be someone with a spare Nikonos or two, so one housing crapping out would not be the end of the shoot. Now, we are all so weight sensitive we tend to travel with one housing. Maybe 2 camera bodies, and spare strobes; but with all the weight restrictions on the airlines most of us are traveling with a single housing. Which is a problem when it is the housing that goes bad, making it unlikely there will be a loaner. Not suggesting a solution ... just an observation about how things are going and how we might all get snake-bit sooner or later.

Thanks anyway to all who responded.

Hi Steve, I'm glad I could help isolate the problem. A grip problem sounds a little odd as they are independently sealed, so a flood in the housing should not affect the grips. But regardless, I'll post what I find after the housing arrives.

Hi Steve, I'm glad I could help isolate the problem. A grip problem sounds a little odd as they are independently sealed, so a flood in the housing should not affect the grips. But regardless, I'll post what I find after the housing arrives.

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I think it may have been a battery issue in the handles, unrelated to the flood. I could not find corrossion inside the housing, and in fact was impressed with the way the electronic modules are sealed against splash.

No way to know for sure as I only travel with metric allen wrenches and it takes imperial to open the battery compartment. Whatever battery is inside, I figured we could not get in St. Vincent anyway. We gave up and he chose to go home a day early.

Thanks though, and I will appreciate your final diagnosis.

Steve

One nice trick with the LMI handles is being able to switch their functions from left to right. That way if one handle craps out you still have access to its functions through the other handle.

Good tip Kasey!

On the Titan D100 Housing this would be accomplished by pressing and holding (for 3 seconds) the Main/- button & the Flash L/R/Off button simultaneously on the Left Grip. On the Right Grip it's the Sub/- and the Focus buttons. Reprogramming one grip does not reverse the function of the other grip.

Reversing the functions of Main and Sub Command dials of the D100 camera itself is also possible using Custom Function 13. This is useful if only the shutter speed and aperture functions need to be accessed and you've got a dead grip