Hmm... been doing a bit of research on the new Sea&Sea YS-D1 strobe. Although it looks good on paper (mostly), I was a little concerned by this line in the manual...
"CAUTION: If the full flash has been activated 10 times in a row, allow the product to rest for 10 minutes before attempting to use it again."
That suggests to me that the strobe has a tendency to overheat. Am I the only one that thinks this sounds very similar to the problem Nikon had with its SB900 slave gun? ie. they tried to pack too much power into too small a package.
Hmm... been doing a bit of research on the new Sea&Sea YS-D1 strobe. Although it looks good on paper (mostly), I was a little concerned by this line in the manual...
"CAUTION: If the full flash has been activated 10 times in a row, allow the product to rest for 10 minutes before attempting to use it again."
That suggests to me that the strobe has a tendency to overheat. Am I the only one that thinks this sounds very similar to the problem Nikon had with its SB900 slave gun? ie. they tried to pack too much power into too small a package.
Found it. Page E-23. Yeah, I find it interesting as well. Ill wait patiently for the reviews. I was hopeful and was thinking tht I would upgrade to these. Well .... I guess i'll wait and see.
Looking at that page I'm sorta interested in the second bullet point:
"Do not attempt to activate the flash on the unit with the flash facing downward."
I don't know about the pointing downwards thing, but the Z240 manual also says a similar thing about waiting between flashes. I merrily ignore this and flash away, but I mostly dive in cold water. I did have a dive in 19 degrees with the aiming lights on continuously where the strobe shut down and refused to fire, but then fired up after 5 minutes or so - I assumed this was because of overheating, and stopped using the aiming lights as dive lights.
Well, considering that nobody has even seen a working model of this strobe I think it's a little early to start posting that there's an overheating problem...
Inon has had that warning and makes people use the Enloops style long life batteries which do not heat up upon discharge, but upon charging. I think you should use them for all strobes...
Jack
Extract from Ikelite DS161 User Manual:
Do not fire the strobe more than 15 times in rapid succession. If this does happen,
allow the DS161 to cool off for at least 10 minutes before resuming photography.
Guys, let me congrat Sea&Sea for keep this useful tip.
I've been shooting with dual YS-D1s all week in Bonaire. 3200 shots over the course of the week. No issues with over-heating or strobe not firing or anything like that. I really l;iked them. (I switched from SB-105s.) One thing I like a lot is, shooting in manual, I can control the light better with the D1. On the SB105s, the only choices were Full - 1/4 - 1/16, two stops per switch. On the D1, it's 1/2 stop increments. Much better control of the light.
- Ken
Like others have said, this is not something new or troubling. Ikelite strobes have the same warning. Remember, the limitation is for 10+ FULL DUMPS. I don't think I've ever intentionally done a full dump on my strobes.
Like Ken, I worked the hell out of my new D1s last August (three weeks, 58 dives, ~10K shots). One of my strobes was hinky from the start using TTL but worked just fine in manual and has since been repaired.
The tubes of my Inons have started to blacken. When I queried this with the UK importer, I was told it was because I was repeat flashing and shoiuld wait longer before taking the following shot. This is a problem with all flash tubes and the smaller the tube, the worse it might be. So, get the shot or save the flash?
