Strobe quesion for Ikelite D-70 housing.

I picked up my newly delivered Ikelite D-70 housing from my dive shop today and started to get familiar with it this evening. In general I think I am going to be quite happy, but then I got to the section on Flash Connector. Quoting from the manual.

The flash connector permits any Ikelite Substrobe to be connected to the housing.

The Ikelite Nikon D-100 and D70 housings will operate in manual model only with Ikelite strobes.

Do not use 5-bin sync cords with non-TTL strobes. You will damage the camera circuitry.

I am having trouble parsing this, and want to make sure I do not 'Damage the camera circuitry' The Ikelite website has no additoional info on this that I coudl find.

Is this saying that I sould only connect TTL strobes to the camera, or is it saying that I should additionally set the strobe to TTL instead of manual?

How do I tell if my (old) cord is a 5 pin sync cord. I am 90% sure it is, but is there a way to find out?

(To get specific) Any concern with using my old SB-103 on manual mode - at 1/2 or 1/4 power? How about my old AI/N? What about my more recent substrobe 50?

Thanks

I'll take a stab.

You have a camera that generates an i-TTL signal, so....

1) If you hook it up to a TTL strobe via a TTL sync cord, it will not fire, or it will fire once. You can either cover some contact points on your hot shoe (preventing i-TTL signal from reaching strobe) or buy an Ikelite non-TTL sync cord.

Oops, just looked at Ikelite website, apparently they have taken care of this issue in their hot shoe. Use any Ikelite sync cord with a TTL strobe

Do not set the strobe to TTL. TTL will not work. You must set the strobe to manual.

This is what you would have to do for your SB-103 (which, btw, you should turn in for a free SB-105) before it explodes.

2) If you hook it up to a non-TTL strobe via a TTL sync cord, it will not fire and can damage your camera.

The AI/N strobe will not work with digital cameras.

How do I tell if my (old) cord is a 5 pin sync cord. I am 90% sure it is, but is there a way to find out?

Does it have 3 female connectors and two male connectors on it? Is this from your SB-103? If so, then it's a TTL cord.

The answer to your Ikelite 50 question will depend on which version (SS or DS). There are two versions of the SS and it may make a difference on when the strobe was manufactures (before or after 6/2001).

JohnChenault can relax. Housing instructions need to be revised. It refers to very old original SubStrobes built before the advent of TTL which can throw 360 volts at the camera. Even these can be used because hot shoe only connects sync circuit to the camera. SubStrobe Ai, Ain and 100 can be used with the D70. Any Nikonos, Inon, or Ikelite SubStrobe can be used with appropriate sync cord. See chart on following URLs:

http://www.ikelite.com/web_pages/camnikchart.html

http://www.ikelite.com/web_pages/2dm100strobes.html