failing DS-125?

Hello all

I've been a satisfied user of a DS-125 for the past two years. However, my strobe does no longer seem to work anymore. I discovered this the first day during my holiday... :-(

When it is not connected to the camera housing, the strobe produces an annoying beep constantly when switched on. Yes, the battery is working fine, when I switch to "test", the pilot light is on as well as the three red indicator lights.

When I shortwire the ground and trigger as indicated on the Ikelite website http://www.ikelite.com/faq/faq_syncwiring.html, the constant beep is replaced by an intermittent beep (50% on-off) and the ready light starts blinking. If I remove the shortwire, the intermittent beep remains for a couple of seconds, before it switches to the same annoying constant beep as before shortwiring.

Needless to say, the strobe won't fire when attached to the camera housing (Ikelite housing, C5060 camera) using a sync cord.

Unfortunately, the 2 year warranty has _just_ expired.

Before I send in the strobe to Ikelite for repair, is there anything I can do to isolate the problem?

Regards,

Winston

I'd recommend trying another sync cord first. The humming and beeping is normal. The red light blinks when in TTL mode for about 4 seconds when the image is under exposed and you need to correct your exposure. At the same time, you will get a beeping sound for about 4 seconds because the image is underexposed.

Conversely, you will get a continuous tone while in TTL mode if the exposure was correct and the ready light will pop on to a solid red and not blink. So when you shortwire the strobe it dumps a full load (so to speak) and will beep until the capicator is ready for another shutter trigger. Generally a full strobe dump tells the strobe that an underexposure has occurred and that's why you get the sounds you do when you shortwire. This tells me that your strobe and battery are fine. So I would first try a different cord. That's usually the case, but you also might want to check your bulkhead for corrosion from droplets of water. A thin coat of green corrosion on one prong can cause complete strobe failure, and is the simplest and least expensive ($0) of all fixes.

Good luck and let us know what you find.

Joe

I didn't see any indication that it fired when you shorted it. If it didn't, I imagine that it will have to go to Ike for repair. Ike's repairs are very resonable and he may cut you some slack on the warantee to boot.

Ike's charges for an out of warranty problem are very reasonable. Also if you need it quickly and let them know they will go out of their way to get it out to you quickly. Send it to them if a new synch cord or battery doesn't work.

Winston,

I had similar problem with my Ikelite DS-125. It was a constant high-pitch sound and strobe died few days later. It had to be sent to Ikelite for repair. I believe that those sounds are produced by the capacitor inside the strobe.

After reading the posts to this subject, it was clear that my strobe needed to be sent to Ikelite. The strobe didn't fire after shortwiring. I had it sent to Ikelite about a week ago. Fingers crossed.