Sea and Sea YS110

Here is something I'm irritated by with this strobe:

I have connected a YS110 along with a YS90DX to a DX-D50 housing each with their own sync cord. The YS90DX will not fire unless the YS110 is switched ON. Everything works fine when the YS110 is ON but the moment I switch the YS110 to OFF - the other strobe fails to fire.

So what's going on here then?

For information - although my housing has two five pin bulkheads there only appear to be two wires soldered to each one inside the housing. That should have kept it simple! Also it makes no difference which way round the sync cables are connected.

It's irritating because there are shots where I would like to turn one off and still be able to fire the other one.

I eagely await the collective brainpower of wetpixelites to explain this one - or suggest a solution.

That's an interesting problem. Are you saying that you've switched the strobes and cables around in every configuration and checked all the settings and, no matter what, the YS90 will not fire if the YS110 is off? If so, then I would certainly try contacting Sea & Sea once you've experimented a little and can answer all of their questions.

I'm expecting my YS110 to arrive in the next couple of days and am also using it with a YS90DX and DX70 housing (which only has 1 bulkhead), but was planning to use it as a slave and only hook up the YS90DX via a cable.

I'll update this post with the results of my planned setup once I put it to use.

That is very perculiar Trevor. I've just tried a similar thing using my canon rig with a YS-110 and a YS-90DX. Both strobes were attached to ports on the S&S TTL converter, but that just commons out the X sync, Quench and Ground lines between the two strobes anyway. So it should be pretty much the same as your rig, but with the addition of the Quench line.

Mine works fine and dandy, both strobes on or either one off.

Do you get the same daftness if you turn the YS-90DX off and just fire the YS-110?

Martyn

Just to confirm - no matter what configuration I use - my YS90DX will not fire when the YS110 is connected and set to OFF. If I replace the YS110 with a YS30 on the same sync cord the YS90DX will fire without any such problems. (as you would expect)

If I try it the other around - the YS110 will fire with no problems irrespective of wether the YS90DX is set to ON or OFF.

I have contacted the Sea & Sea UK importers but no answers yet.

Martyn - could you try the same test but without that TTL converter thing attatched - just to see if you can simulate the problem

Thanks, Trev

It's the same problem when I connect my YS30 and YS110 - both on seperate sync cables. The YS30 will not fire unless the YS110 is switched on.

Very strange indeed! - so what on earth is going on?

I've noticed on all the Sea and Sea sales blurb on the DX-D80 housing that if you want to use seperate sync cables rather than a duo cable - you have to get a 5 to 2 pin bulkhead conversion done on the housing. Is this related to my problem?

Trevor,

Your housing has a two 2 pin ports, so you can connect two strobes. The DX-D80 has a 2 pin and a 5 pin so that it can take a) the TTL adapter on the 5 pin port, B) a single manual strobe on the 2 pin port or c) two manual strobes on the 2 pin port, via a Y-cable. Sea&Sea can adapt the DX-D50 to be like the DX-D80 or vice versa. I don't think this difference in default bulkhead setup is related to your problem.

My housing doesn't have two 2 pin ports so I can't directly reproduce your test. My TTL adapter has two output ports, but they have 3 pins connected to allow for TTL, so they aren't completely identical to yours. Those are the ports I used to do my test for you that I mentioned earlier. I actually have a 2 pin and a 6 pin port on my housing, so I can't attach a strobe to the 6 pin port directly. That's a breakout of the full hotshoe AFAIK.

If you got the YS-110 through the UK distributers, I'd try giving them a ring and asking for David Rose, their technical guy.

It sounds to me like the YS-110 you have may be slightly faulty or you've found a behaviour that only shows itself while the strobe is off and is connected by a 2 pin cable. Sounds unlikely that it would be problem on 2 pin but not on 3 pin.

Are you handy with a multimeter? If so you could check what happens to the resistance between the X sync and GND pins on the YS-110 when you turn it off. I can only assume it shorts them out to get the behaviour you're seeing.

In fact you could do a very simple test:

Leave the 110 unplugged and turned off

Plug in the 90DX, set to manual, not PRE.

Turn on the 90DX

Plug in the 110

If the 110 is shorting the X sync to GND, the 90DX will fire. In fact if the 90DX fires when you turn the 110 off then that would also prove it.

If this doesn't happen I'm stumped, since the 2 pin connection just works by the strobes presenting a trigger voltage on the X sync line that the camera shorts to GND when it wants them to fire. The only way a strobe that was turned off could affect the other one is by maintaining a short to GND so that the camera makes no difference when it tries to fire the circuit. I'll have a look at my 110s with the meter and see what they do.

If you don't know the pinouts, look here:

Good Old CamerasUnderwater Info Pages

Any joy?

Martyn

Hi Martyn,

I've checked a few things.

Firstly my housing has 2 identicle looking five pin bulkheads. There are only two wires soldered to each one inside the housing

Secondly, if I have l have the YS90DX connected and switched to ON - the action of plugging in a YS110 that is switched OFF will trigger the YS90DX to fire. However when both stobes are connected the action of turning the YS110 from On to OFF does not trigger the YS90DX.

I have contacted Sea and Sea UK and Alan James - but no answers yet.

Another unrelated characteristic feature of the YS110 strobe that may interest some people (from Alan James) is that the Slave feature of the strobe is poor. Aparently the slave sensor is quite well recessed so that a fibre optic cable can be fitted - but as a conseqence using the YS110 as a cordless slave is not great.

Interesting, I bet the "edge" that the 90DX sees as the 110 is turned off is too soft to trigger it, but it still disables the camera signal. Obviously the actof plugging it in will casue a real sharp edge.

I would have thought that adding a diode to each bulkhead connection, i.e. inside the housing, should fix this little issue. I would expect David would be able to sort that out.

I still suspect that your 110 is slightly odd, as the same thing should happen on my rig but it doesn't

I'll try testing my gear this evening to see if my 110s are low resistance when off.

On the optical slave front, maybe someone should design a little relay optic to pickup light from a wide angle and "funnel" it down the sensor well. It might be as simple as inserting a white tube into the black well, so that light gets reflected down there.

I've never had much faith in cordless slaving, but I guess the design is likely to make a bad thing worse.

Martyn

Well, my YS-110s have a resistance of about 13K across the XSync and GND terminals when off, so I wouldn't expect that to short out the camera particularly, unless for instance the camera terminals were really dirty. So still a bit puzzling.

What I did notice was that the YS-110s in TTL mode are really pessimistic about when they are ready. Even though they are ready to fire after less than a second at short distances, the ready light and modelling light only come back on after about 3 sec. I assume it's partly because they wanted the user to see that the TTL OK light had come on, but that's a little on the overkill side.

This kind of exhaustive testing of the system topside really helps me get a feel for what's likely to happen underwater, but without all the other task loading, so that's all good stuff.

Martyn

More strange behaviour -

If I connect two YS110's to the DX-D50 with both stobes turned on - the action of turning either of the strobes off causes the strobe being turned off to fire. This does not happen if the strobe is not connected to the housing. It's not a problem, but does seem odd.

Clearly - the YS110 behaves very differently to a YS90 on this particular housing. Any ideas?

Another unrelated characteristic feature of the YS110 strobe that may interest some people (from Alan James) is that the Slave feature of the strobe is poor. Aparently the slave sensor is quite well recessed so that a fibre optic cable can be fitted - but as a conseqence using the YS110 as a cordless slave is not great.

Interesting,

I'm testing mine two YS-110 but I have not bought the fiber optic cable. Do you know the right cable for the job? I haven't seen it on Sea&Sea catalogue.

By the way, I've tested one YS-110 with Heinrich's converter for the D70 and I've found that it's possible to switch from i-TTL to manual without having to open the housing (with this converter you have to switch Flash mode to REAR to get from TTL to manual... with Subal ND70 it means you have to open it :-( ). How? Just have to move the YS-110 from TTL to Manual 2 (or Manual 1) and avoid using Full power. All other power settings are available...

I'm getting good results with Heinrich's i-TTL converter and the YS-110 ;-)

Interesting,

 

I'm testing mine two YS-110 but I have not bought the fiber optic cable. Do you know the right cable for the job? I haven't seen it on Sea&Sea catalogue.

 

By the way, I've tested one YS-110 with Heinrich's converter for the D70 and I've found that it's possible to switch from i-TTL to manual without having to open the housing (with this converter you have to switch Flash mode to REAR to get from TTL to manual... with Subal ND70 it means you have to open it :-( ). How? Just have to move the YS-110 from TTL to Manual 2 (or Manual 1) and avoid using Full power. All other power settings are available...

 

I'm getting good results with Heinrich's i-TTL converter and the YS-110 ;-)

I've just retrofitted a Heinrich's iTTL converter to my Nexus D70 housing. I replaced the lens release rod on the Nexus with a longer one that allows activating the strobe control button, so i can switch between iTTL and MTTL without opening the housing. Bench tested the converter with a variety of strobes, with the following results.

YS-90 Auto: will do iTTL and 10 levels under MTTL converter control

YS-120: will not do iTTL (perhaps older models?); does 10 levels under MTTL

Ikelite SS50: will do 10 levels under MTTL

Ikelite SS200: only does about 4 levels under MTTL (strobe too big?)

Ikelite DS50: should have one to test next week.

I've been shooting macro with a pair of SS50s, altering exposure by turning one off, or changing aperature. I'm looking forward to being able to keep a set speed and aperature and varying the exposure by controling strobe output. In-water tests will have to wait until the surf goes down (currently 15-20' on the North Shore of Oahu).

I've been shooting macro with a pair of SS50s, altering exposure by turning one off, or changing aperature.

Me too! I had no way to control power output of my pair of DS50 so I have been shooting Macro with Full Power and changing aperture (speed at maximum sincronization of D70) or by changing distance of strobes. Not many options...

Now I have a new Heinrich converter and a pair of YS-110 . I can get 12 power options on Manual, i-TTL with dual strobe operation and I can also switch from i-TTL to Manual without opening the Subal housing...

Couldn't ask for more options...

Going back to Trevors origanal post.............

I have exactly the same problem as Trevor when I,ve got a YS110 connected to one synch socket on my Subal ND70 no matter what strobe I've got connected to the other socket, if the 110's switched off it will not fire. Ive tried Sea&Sea YS 90, 30 and 120's.

If the 110 is off, camera on and I disconect the switched on but non 110 strobe it will fire as the connection is broken. (short circuit maybe?)

Every thing works fine when the 110 is on so it wont cause any problems underwater, if I need to use just one strobe though it looks like its gonna be the 110.

This thread has been running a while now, has anyone found a reason or solution?

Hope you all had a good a Christmas

Nige

Nige - Yes, I thought my initial post might have come up with a few answers - not yet anyhow.

Interesting that at least one other person has come across the same issue - and this time with a Subal rig.

Sea & Sea UK as well as Alan James photograhy have not come up with any answers, which is a little disappointing. The only unsatisfactory answer I have had so far is that the YS110's are designed to be used via a duo cable or a TTL converter - both of which I wanted to keep clear of.

I'm sure as more people buy these strobes this problem will surface again.

I'm sure as more people buy these strobes this problem will surface again.

I doubt very much if we're on our own on this one Trevor, but most divers aren't going to turn their 110's off and therefore don't realise there's a problem.

I only tried it after reading your post otherwise I'd be none the wiser.

I forgot to mention that I had the wiring altered at Ocean Optics to get rid of any unwanted TTL functions that affected the D70s, this made both sockets 2 wire connections.

Amazing stuff those electrocuticals :glare:

hopefully this thread will run and answer all our questions.

Nige

Hi Nige, and Trevor

It looks to me like some of the YS-110 strobes have an oddly low resistance across the sync terminals when thy're switched off. Mine seem ok, but it would appear that yours are low enough to cause an effective short across these shared terminals, that the other strobe sees as if the camera had not reset after an exposure.

The way to counteract this would be to add a diode in each bulkhead socket, so that only the camera can fire each strobe, not a short from the other strobe.

In case anyone doesn't know, all X-sync connections work by the strobe providing a trigger voltage on the X-sync pin, that the camera shorts to GND when it wants the strobe to fire. The short is generally removed by the camera when the shutter closes, then the strobe electronics start to recycle and wait for the next short.

By adding diodes that only allow current to flow towards the camera's X-sync contact, it should prevent the problem you guys are seeing. I'm sure that would be the next thing that Steve at Ocean Optics would suggest too.

If you need any practical help with fixing it, let me know.

Martyn

Martyn, thanks for the reply - I like your reasoning and it seems to make sense.

If I was to add a diode where exactly would I do this?

Attatched is an image of the inside of my housing showing the two wires to each bulkhead. I presume desoldering the red 'X' wire and inserting a diode at that point would be one place. Would a diode on each bulkhead be needed?

On a seperate question - I am confused about Sea & Sea housings such as the DX-D80 and DX-D200 that have a five pin bulkhead labelled for the TTl converter plus a 2 pin one. I presume your 5D housing is like this too. I realise that all five pins are needed for the TTl converter but can this 5 pin socket be used to just plug in a strobe or not? I seem to remember Ryan at Reef photo saying that they do a blanking type disc to block off some of the connections if two strobes on seperate sync cords are required.

Hi Trevor, thanks for posting the pic. As you say the red wire is the X-sync connection and yes you'd unsolder it and insert a diode. The cathode of the diode, marked with a band, should "point" towards the red wire that goes to the hotshoe, and away from the strobe. Trigger voltages are usually positive, so you want current to flow from each strobe through the X-sync on the camera to ground, not through the other strobe.

Now, before doing any of this, check with a multimeter that there are no diodes in the hotshoe already. Do this by doing continuity tests in both directions from the X pin on the hotshoe "plug" to the solder pad where the red wire joins on each bulkhead socket. If there is continuity one way only on each of the branches you know there are diodes in there already, and we're back to square one.

An even simpler test is for continuity from X on one bulkhead to X on the other. Diodes would prevent this from ever conducting. My guess is that it will show up short and we're in business.

As for the 5-pin sockets for the TTL connector, they are just fully populated with wires back to the hotshoe. This allows the camera to go for full i-TTL dedication with preflash and all that good stuff. The 2-pin connection stops the camera from trying any of that and resign itself to just shorting X to ground as the shutter opens. Housings with a 5-pin and a 2-pin socket have both sockets share the X and GND pins on the hotshoe. I suspect you wouldn't get much useful out of the 2-pin if the 5-pin was connected to a TTL adapter. the X might fire on the preflash, messing everything up for the 2-pin strobe.

The blanking disc would make sense to me, so that the camera doesn't get confused by unexpected signals on the other pins. I'm not 100% on how the Nikon DSLRs react to Nikonos TTL style strobe signals. An alternative would be to tape off the pins on the hotshoe.

On the Canon system, there are 6 pins to make it even nastier, so Sea&sea have cooked up a red 6-pin Nikonos type bulkhead socket. There is an extra pin in the centre of the connector and the spacings of the other pins look slightly different to the 5-pin. These 6 pins are connected directly to the hotshoe pins, and the secondary 2-pin gets the X and GND as in the Nikon system.

Make sense?

Martyn

Hi guys,

I've just received a pair of YS110s which I'm planning to take on a trip tomorrow (reading this thread, I think I'll take my old YS90s too just to be on the safe side !)

I've just spoken to Alan James. He confirmed that I shouldn't use 2 separate synch cords on my DX-D200, but would be better-off taking a double synch cord instead.

He also mentioned that the YS110 would not fire via the cable if the Slave switch was set to 'On'.

Has anybody got any other tips before I take the strobes away ?

Thanks !

JP