S&S YS 110 not firing

Hey everyone,

I know before I post this that there is some degree of "you get what you pay for" to this thread, but I think I should "get" a little more than I have so far...

I bought a supposedly-new YS110 (not an alpha) off of a major online auction site for about 350 dollars US.

I have it paired with a YS-90 that I've had for quite a while, and these are attached to a Subal C10 housing with a Canon 10d camera in it. The YS-90 is extremely reliable (as it's been since 2000 or 2001 when I bought it), but this 110 does not fire reliably.

I tried it in 'slave' mode over the past few days and that's even less reliable than when it's got a sync cord plugged into it. I use Nikonos-style sync cords.

Does anyone have any information on the YS110; like known incompatibilities that I should have checked before I compulsively bought it?

Thanks in advance,

brian

A couple years ago I replaced my broken YS-90's with YS-110's (no alpha). Thought they would be plug & play. Not quite. Turned out that the hot shoe adapter in my Nexus housing was properly wired for the 90's but not the 110's. An older model hot shoe adapter worked, but also taping over the 2 rear hot shoe contacts on my Nikon D300. You may have a similar issue. (Sorry I don't speak Canon.)

Wow, thanks for the tip.

I think you might be on to something! When I typed "canon hot shoe pin out" just looking for a schematic to do some thinking about, the first entry was from Seacam talking about various pin configurations needed for 1 & 2 strobe systems and manual vs. TTL.

I think this may prove to be a fruitful trail to follow. Thanks a bunch!

-brian

There seems to be a not too uncommon trigger problem with these though

It does not seem to affect all units though and I don't know if it affects only optical/electrical or both. See thread below.

http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=41043

Cheers

/O

I am somewhat embarrassed to say that this is probably user abuse by me. I played with the strobes last night, in every combination of cable & port I have available to me (2 sync cables, 2 ports, 2 strobes), and with probably 500 test fires there were no misses or mess-ups by the '110. My neighbors probably thought something weird was going on though...

The only variable that was different last night is that I loaded the '110 with my old faithful "Hi Capacity" NiCAD batteries (the old blue Radio Shack variety), as opposed to some (old) NiMH batteries that I had loaded it with previously. I'm thinking these NiMH batteries have outlived their usefulness (they're very old), and and I'm guessing the NiCADs delivered a better voltage/current signature that perhaps the '110 is more sensitive to than the '90.

So I'm off to buy some new rechargables in the immediate future. Are "high capacity" NiCADs even available anymore? I'm not seeing anything at the Radio Shack web site. Back in the day I was told that NiCAD batteries are superior to NiMH in strobes because of the higher current they deliver... is this a line of hooey?

Cheers,

brian

Remember that NiCad's have a memory, so you may want to go with NiMH. It's good to replace all your strobe batteries every couple of years if they get a lot of use or not. Stuff happens. Batteries are one of the cheapest parts of your camera rig, so get good quality. I've had good luck with MaHa 2700 NiMH. Also pick up a pulse type battery tester & check batteries when you remove them from the strobes. If a strobe dies prematurely its usually caused by a bad cell in the set. The pulse tester will tell you which one, more accurately than a standard volt meter. For 2 strobes I take 10 sets on a long trip, just is case.

Hey Jcc -- these baby-blue colored "High Capacity" NiCad batteries came with a charger that discharges the batteries completely before charging them up. It's a cool feature, because of that NiCad charge memory problem. I've had fantastic luck with these batteries, and will be sad when they finally do give up the ghost (which has to be sometime soon, based on their age) - especially if they can't be gotten anymore.

So when you run 2700mAh NiMHs in your strobes you don't have any overheating/hydrogen O-ring reaction/etc? I was thinking about getting Eneloops because they're actually lower powered batteries...?

Hey Jcc -- these baby-blue colored "High Capacity" NiCad batteries came with a charger that discharges the batteries completely before charging them up. It's a cool feature, because of that NiCad charge memory problem. I've had fantastic luck with these batteries, and will be sad when they finally do give up the ghost (which has to be sometime soon, based on their age) - especially if they can't be gotten anymore.

 

So when you run 2700mAh NiMHs in your strobes you don't have any overheating/hydrogen O-ring reaction/etc? I was thinking about getting Eneloops because they're actually lower powered batteries...?

Never had any of those problems. I just minor status of batteries after use & replace bad cells if they occur. On my 2 month Indonesia trip I usually shoot 250-350 pics/day on all but travel days (only ~10,000 pics to edit). Tried Sanyo NiMH last year but had issues with some batteries that discharged at a different rate than others in a set, resulting in fewer flashes. Went back to Maha Power Ex's.

Since I got the D300 I've been using a part of YS-27's with fiber optics. Smaller & lighter than the 110's & gives about 400 flashes at full power/set. Typically I set strobes at 1/2 power (+/-) for macro.