As an industry person, I have to say that in my 30 years of diving and photography I have finally had it with Ikelite. Too many times have I purchased or upgraded strobes only to have to send them back for repair shortly after receiving them. The knobs on my new substrobes have no friction or mechanical lock so if they even so much as brush against something else in my ice chest they turn on. When I pull them out to use them the batteries are dead. I have to now tape the on-off knobs in the off position to make sure my batteries aren’t drained when I go diving.
The sync cords have plagued me for years and their quality forces me to purchase multiple units so I have some redundancy. The straw that broke the camel’s back for me was how Ikelite responded to a recent problem I had with their cords. About 1.5 – 2 years ago I purchased four dual sync cords from Jean Brigham so that I had redundancy. When I received the cords I left them in the original boxes and put them in my ice chest, toting them with me on my trips as back ups to my back ups (unfortunately this is necessary with Ikelite sync cords). I used two of the four and after 1.5 -2 years both finally died. A few weeks ago I was doing a shoot and had to replace the last cord that failed with one of the remaining two unused ones. The first cord, never used and fresh out of its box, failed. In a panic, I pulled out the last remaining new cord (freshly out of its original packaging) and it also failed, leaving me with no strobe use on this assignment. Now Ikelite’s position is that these are more than a year old and therefore they are not subject to replacement. They might have that edge from a legal warranty standpoint, but the reality is that they sold me two defective cords and won’t stand behind that simple fact. They want me to pay to replace these cords that they have verified are defective (and were sent to me defective). Because I failed to do a functionality check when I received them, I am being held accountable for Ikelite’s incompetent quality assurance. They choose to place the quality assurance burden on the consumer rather than do the right thing in order to retain a once loyal Ikelite user.
The reality is that the only way for me to conduct a realistic examination of a sync cord’s functionality is to dive with them. What does this mean? It means that I’m expected to pay for a dive trip just to test their cords (and within 12 months) solely because they have a proven dysfunctional quality system? That is ridiculous. I shouldn’t have to take additional measures as a consumer to validate that the cords function as intended (other than normal use). That in itself must be an integral component of Ikelite’s quality system. To receive 50 percent of my cords (2 of 4) in non-conformance condition says a lot about Ikelite’s current state quality system. The goal of any business must be to minimize external product failures and place emphasis on appraisal and prevention costs to catch problems internally before they reach the consumer. Why is this important? Because the cost of external failures is far greater than internal failures because the consumer now has had a negative experience and is likely not to purchase that product again (and I won't). I can’t go diving and have the confidence that their cords or strobes will work. I own seven Ikelite strobes (mostly for redundancy) and about 10 sync cords (also because of high failure rates) for redundancy. I simply cannot continue this way. Too time consuming, too expensive and the quality problems I’ve had add way too much risk to my dive trips. Not having functional equipment on a $10,000 dive trip isn’t a very good way to spend your time when the primary reason you went was to capture the ocean’s beauty with your underwater camera system.
It is for these reasons that I am abandoning Ikelite’s products. I will not promote them in my seminars, on my website, on my trips, or in the 2nd edition of my Catalina book. The way they have decided to handle this most recent dispute was the catalyst for my decision. I have to say that since Ike’s passing I personally am experiencing what I think is a decline in customer accommodation (doing what’s right for the business and the customer). Even though Ikelite has agreed to split the cost with me is unacceptable. It's like they are trying to negotiate themselves out of responsibility.
This being said I am open to any suggestions on strobe selection. I would prefer something small that would act as a macro strobe and a wide angle strobe so I don't have to own seven strobes. But I am open to any solid suggestions (Inon, Sea &Sea, etc.). I would like to hear your experiences on durability as well and any problems you have experienced with both the strobes and sync cords. I am fully aware that stuff wears out and I am not asking that kind of question. Just looking for a fairly robust strobe system that you have had positive experiences with, besides Ikelite.
Joe
