help, please, with strobe problem on Nexus D100

Hi all,

I'm in Bonaire trying out my new rig: D100, Nexus Housing, and Inon Z220 strobes. I had tried out the system (with macro port) in my local lake and it seemed to work fine. Here it is giving me trouble though. Everything is working ok, except the strobes. They fire on land ok, but when I get in the water they fire once or twice and then stop. When I get back on land, they work again. They even work in the rinse tank, and also worked after a dive doing a split shot.

Nothing shows any sign of flooding. It seems like it must be the strobe cords or the hotshoe connector. The strobe cords are Sea&Sea; I think I am connecting them right, and properly preparing the o-rings, etc.

Any ideas or suggestions?

Thanks,

Cp

Hello and sorry to hear strobe is not firing underwater.

Just from the symptoms you describe it is difficult to conclusively determine the cause, so let’s try troubleshooting it.

Cause could be in one or more of following components:

1) Camera system (including housing as one component of it)

2) Sync cord

3) Strobe

It may not be practical since you are in remote location, but if you can find someone with the same system as you, and borrow each of above components, switching them into your system one by one, you will likely determine cause.

Otherwise, start with the usual suspect: sync cords.

Do you have any spares you can try? Will anyone loan you one or two of theirs for a dive so you can test?

For strobe, check following:

1) Main Switch set to “X and WIRE”.

2) Magnet should not be installed.

3) Are battery box inner cap terminals “standing up” enough (not flattened)? If flattened, bend up a little.

4) Are battery box terminals corroded? Clean as necessary.

5) Strobe only works in Manual settings with D100. Do not set to TTL.

More details in Manual. If you don’t have a copy with you it is downloadable here:

http://www.inonamerica.com/images/pdfs/Z22...nualVer1.51.pdf

(note: large pdf file 588k)

I’m curious, will the strobe fire underwater by manually rotating the Main Switch to “TEST”?

Good luck with the testing and let us know how it goes.

Best regards,

-Mark Rupert

Inon America, Inc.

Hi Mark

Thanks for the great input. It is working now. It appears to have been the contacts on the hotshoe on the camera - I used an eraser to clean them and the stobes fired on all three dives today.

I still have another problem, though. It seems to happen whenever the stobe connector is attached to the hotshoe, i.e. even when the camera is in the housing but housing is not closed. The camera sort of goes into limbo mode after about 10 seconds. To get it back, I either have to turn it off and then on again, or press the flash exposure button (found that by trial and error). A couple of other buttons bring it back from sleepy mode, but the shutter release button is not one of them. When the hotshoe is not connected, it still goes into sleep mode, but the shutter release brings it right back when pressed halfway, Is there something I could have set incorrectly? Any ideas about this problem?

Thanks,

Chris

Oops, sorry about the triple post. My 'net connection here is a little funky.

Cp

Hello Chris and glad to hear your system is working.

We have not seen the hotshoe connector induced sleep mode you describe.

When you connect the housing’s hot shoe connector to the camera’s hot shoe, does it matter if the strobes are also connected to the housing, and if so, if they are turned on or not?

If the strobes are not connected and you still get unexpected sleep mode I would suspect either a conflict between the housing’s circuitry and the camera, or a camera setting that needs changing. D100 users could speculate on camera settings.

Nexus housings have a "main" and a "sub" bulkhead connector. If using dual strobes, are you using two single sync cords or one double? If using a single strobe, is it connected to the housing’s “main” bulkhead connector, or the “sub” bulkhead connector? Maybe try switching the sync cord to the other connector. Hopefully someone with your system can give better advice.

Best regards,

Mark Rupert

Inon America, Inc.

It does it both with the strobes powered on or off. I haven't tried it with the strobes detached, I'll try that tonight. I'm using two seperate sync cords, one connected to main and one to the sub.

Thanks for the help.

Cp

Update: It has been working flawlessly for the past 3 days. The only change I made was to clean the hotshoe contacts again. I wish I knew for sure whether that was the problem or not, but it is working, so I'm a happy camper. I'll post a couple of pics when I get back Monday.

Thanks again Mark.

Cp

My system worked wonderfully after I got past the sleepytime problem. I have a lot of work to do to become proficient with it, but I think I'll enjoy it.

Here are a couple of shots as promised.

Thanks,

Cp