I wanted to let people know about some problems I had with two Sea & Sea YS-90DX strobes I purchased in April 2003. After working well for the first few dives, I began to experience intermittent failures on first one and then both strobes. After a few more dives of switching them off and on repeatedly to get them to stay powered on, they finally quit working at all. I eventually determined that the power switches had a mechanical fault, and would only turn the strobe on when the switch was pushed in a particular direction with continuous pressure. I managed to jury-rig a solution using zip ties and rubber bands, but it was also prone to frequent failures when the rubber bands would pop off the switches. Sometimes I managed to get them to turn on with properly applied duct tape, but this too was prone to failure. At depths of > 60fsw, even the rubber band technique often failed to keep the strobes powered. It was a frustrating experience, and greatly soured photography efforts during my two-month diving honeymoon. (although I still managed to get three award-winning photos :-)
After returning the strobes to Backscatter for repair, they were able to fix them relatively quickly by replacing the power switches. Apparently there was a known bad batch of YS90DX strobes. Hopefully anybody else who experiences these failures will be able to get their strobes repaired quickly as well. I have yet to test the repairs, since I am still waiting (since July) for the rest of my rig to be returned, thanks to endless delays from Subal.
