Canon 5DSR Ikelite DS161 strobes not firing

Hello gang,

I'm reaching out for some help to try to avoid calling Ikelite tomorrow morning. I'm in Roatan and have a brand new setup I'm using for this trip.

Setup:

Canon 5DSR w/8-15mm fisheye

Ikelite housing

Dual Ikelite DS161 strobes with dual sync cord

I couldn't get the strobes to fire for the life of me today. The camera is brand new as well, but it was firing a 580 speed light just fine before I came down here, so Ive ruled out the hot shoe. I've been able to short the sync cable at the housing port plug and fire both strobes just fine, so I've ruled out the sync cord and strobes as being the issue.

I've adjusted the settings on the camera and tried to fire it both with and without live view with no success. The White balance is set to flash. I've tried automatic mode, P mode, and Manual with no success. I've also read where turning off Silent Shooting in Live view could help. Nothing there seemed to make a difference.

So either I'm missing a setting on the camera, or there is a problem between the hot shoe adapter inside the housing and the bulkhead plug on the housing.

Anyone have anything else I can do to try to trouble shoot? I'm trying to avoid having too many days of down time as I bought all this gear in anticipation for this trip.

Any help or suggestions are greatly appreciated!

Paul

you can find information here on how to manually fire the strobes from the hot shoe connector. I would test that next.

http://www.digital-dive.de/product/en/Tips-Help/Syn-Cords-and-Wiring-Diagrams.html

You do have the camera flash set to on right?

I have the Ikelite strobes and case for a Canon 40D. I've had 2 problems with the housing hotshoe connector .

1) Be sure the hot shoe connectors is inserted in the proper direction so all the contacts line up with the camera hotshoe. Mine has an arrow that points to the front of the camera.

2) When sliding the camera into the housing, be careful not to catch the connector wire on any of the knobs or controllers inside the housing. A slight mid-alignment of the connector may not fire the strobes.

Hope this helps. Good Luck!

I have the Ikelite strobes and case for a Canon 40D. I've had 2 problems with the housing hotshoe connector .

1) Be sure the hot shoe connectors is inserted in the proper direction so all the contacts line up with the camera hotshoe. Mine has an arrow that points to the front of the camera.

2) When sliding the camera into the housing, be careful not to catch the connector wire on any of the knobs or controllers inside the housing. A slight mid-alignment of the connector may not fire the strobes.

Hope this helps. Good Luck!

Thanks for the feedback. I've actually tried to fire them outside of the housing with just the hot shoe connector attached while trouble shooting so I don't think it's a problem with bumping it off after inserting into the housing, although I did notice that this one is a much tighter fit than my previous model, so I'll keep an eye on that for sure.

As far as orientation of the hot shoe, it's labeled as well with an arrow and I double checked and the contacts line up right.

I'm kinda at a loss at this point. Disappointed for sure as this was a big purchase for this trip. I'm really hoping it's just a camera setting that I'm missing but I just can't fathom what it would be.

you can find information here on how to manually fire the strobes from the hot shoe connector. I would test that next.

 

http://www.digital-dive.de/product/en/Tips-Help/Syn-Cords-and-Wiring-Diagrams.html

 

You do have the camera flash set to on right?

Thanks! This helped me narrow it down even more. So now I'm pretty sure it's a camera setting. Jumping the ground to trigger on the hot shoe adapter triggered the strobes. It's gotta be a simple setting somewhere in the camera.

Anyone have any advice from a 5D or 5DS? I'm sure the settings aren't too far apart.

Thanks in advance!

Quick test. I know the dual cables needs to go the right way in the camera and the strobes. Not using ikelite anymore, but make sure the red/blue labled ends go in the correct device.

/Björn

Had a similiar issue with my ikelite housing, canon 5D mkiii and inon strobes. I cleaned my camera hot shoe connector with some rubbing alcohol and cloth. Did the same with the ikelite hot shoe connector and it seemed to start working again. Although i have had this issue a couple of times so it seems to be a bad connection on mine.

Also just to be sure, if you haven't already, go into your speedlite settings in the camera menu and make sure flash fire is set to Enable.

Hope you get this sorted!

I have just noticed while inspecting my hotshoe connection the ground contact (the spring loaded connector sticking out the side of the ikelite connector) can actually sit too high due to a small gap. This results in the ground contacting sitting too high and missing the connection all together.

The 2 pictures below illustrate what im trying to explain. The first pictures shows how the ground contact should sit and the second shows it missing the the connection.