Hint in need for TTL problem in Ikelite Housing

Hi to All!

Approximatelly 6 months ago i discovered that my ikelite housing has been opened on the boat after jumping in the water.

Naturaly electronic circuits and some other stuff in the camera body were broken and could not be repaired at all.

Likewise the ttl system of the housing was also broken. In the beginning it started to mulfunction from time to time. However after a couple of dives some of the ttl control buttons totally stopped working.

I contacted to Ikelite and they asked me to send the housing to USA. I somehow postponed this operation and now that i am planning a trip i am running out of time.

I wonder whether i can temporarly disable the ttl controller of the housing and control the two DS125 strobes in full manual mode.

How should i change the wiring? Should i better try to open the ttl control box or is it more practical to cut it totally?

Is there anyone with similar experience who can help me?

Thnx in advance for your valuable ideas.

Mehmet

PS: Manual usage of the strobes is not a problem. I would like to get information concerning the modification i need to make with the housing.

How bad is the circuitry? Do the strobes fire at all when you take a picture?

Hi William,

The main problem seems to be with the two mode buttons below the LED scale.

The lower button seems to be working but the higher one does not.

I can not switch between manual and ttl modes at all.

Both strobes are firing. However i am not sure that the ttl works in automatic mode in a reliable manner.

I would be happy to temporarly cancel ttl and to control the strobes in full manual mode.

Mehmet

That is exactly what happened after I flooded my Ikeltie housing.

I found that taking the circuit board out and scrubbing it with toothbrush/toothpaste (followed by a good drying) would get TTL working for a few days. This keep me functional for another 6 months.

Another trick that worked for me when the TTL was not working.

Turn both strobes off, then back on. This resets the TTL circuitry. Immediately press both TTL buttons and it would let me switch to a fully functional manual mode. You have to switch it to manual before you take a picture or it won't work.

Once in manual mode, my housing most of the time worked fine, it would let me turn the power up and down. But when it did not, you can control the power with the knob on the strobe (note this does not work when the housing is in TTL mode because TTL mode transmits a preflash)

If all else fails, you can just just live with the strobes always firing at full power. When full power is too much put the diffusers on and it will cut the power in half. Turn one strobe off and that cuts you power in half again. You can also pull the strobes back and cut power further. Not very often is one strobe with the diffuser on, placed behind the camera too much power.

Even if these tricks work on your housing and seem to give you the functionality you need. I would highly recommend you buy a set of Manual controllers. Then you can control you strobes manually and not worry about your now very unreliable TTL circuitry. The manual controllers will cause the TTL circuitry to power down and be bypassed.

Also, since the manual controllers have slave sensors, if the wired connection fails all together you can still fire your strobes (eventually my hot shoe connector rusted to the the point it quit transmitting any signal at all). You can use the pop-up flash to trigger your strobes. Even though there is not enough room for the pop-up flash to open all the way up, it does put enough light out to trigger the manual controllers.

What about opening the ttl controller and directly connecting the wires coming from bulkhead side with the ones continuing to hotshoe?

Anyway the ttl controller should be replaced as soon as it will be delivered to Ikelite service center.

Or is this theoritically not possible?

I would not cut any wires. Too risky for my taste when a manual controler (you only need one to bypass the bad circuitry) will give you more functionality and has no risk.

But if you really want to email Ikelite and they will tell you how to put it back together.

Finally managed to correct the problem. I opened the ttl box, cut all the wires and directly connected black and white wires coming from bulk head and hot shoe sides.

Now in manual mode everything seems to be working.

Before this attempt i also tried to solve the problem by sticking insulation tape on cameras hotshoe and trying to block the contacts other than the one for trigger however failed to do it somehow : (

Anyway i think the operation inside the ttl controller box was a more reliable procedure than the version with tape.