DIY - Make your own fiber optic cable for your underwater flash - works with S&S YS-D2 flash

This is a DIY video about building your custom lenght fiber cabel to your flash. This cabel also work with the nauticam flash trigger. Nauticam tells on their site that the Sea & Sea YS-D2 is not compatible with their trigger. Here is a work around.
Hopefully nauticam and Sea & Sea send me a thanks

Do you have link for cable and connectors? I read that the 613 fiber cables from s&s may work with the triggers? Those cables are pretty expensive though.

Thanks for posting your videos! I just completed my quadripod based on your design and really looking forward to using it!

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I just used 2 old broken S&S cable`s, and drilled a hole in. Earlier i considered this http://www.divervision.com/howshot-fiber-adapter-l-for-seasea-ys-strobes-FAL-SS.html, but i`m not sure how big cable this can handle and i don't want the 90 degree angle this adapter creates.

Nice quatropod, happy to help you. Looking forward to your video`s

Hi: Excellent approach and solution to the commercial fibreoptic cable problem. The problems are; much too expensive and way too fragile. The thin coiled cables fracture internally and give flaky results.

I buy Toslink hifi cable, 3 or 4 or 5 mm thick, from eBay, and couplings from Amazon

(27mmx7mmx4mm Micro Strain Relief Cord Boot Protector)

or use old Sea&Sea plugs. Divervision also sells rubber fiber optic plugs.

I have used two Toslink cables with home made tips for 4 years with my Nikon/Subal to Inon Z240 and S&S YS-D2 strobes, no problems.

Each cable has cost me about $2 to 3.

UW equipment is way too expensive, gross profiteering off us UW camera nuts.

DIY is the way to defeat the Price Gougers, second hand purchases via eBay and Wetpixel also help keep costs within reason.

Cheers!

Well, the 613 fiber cable by itself is quite expensive, in small quantities it is like $6/foot. You can get it cheaper though if you need 500 meters worth. For me I make my own fiber cables because I like to mess around, not because of price so much. In any case I buy the 2-hole bushings from Inon for $5 each (http://reefphoto.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=135_68_48&products_id=3932) and buy jacketed 1 mm fiber from Asahi for $1.25 per meter. If you use only one fiber then things don't work so well but if you use two fibers (one in each hole) you can get a 1 meter cable that works well with the Nauticam trigger and Inon or S&S strobes for less than $15.

Cheers

Bill

Very impressive!

The advantage of the multiple fiber cable is not so much throughput (it has an NA of 0.5) but it has a really small minimum bend radius of like 2mm. You can not get (or I couldn't find it) the 600 fiber in small lengths but you can get the 217 fiber stuff in meter quantities.

Bill

Hi

I followed the advice of Leidlt and bought some cheap transparent optical cable (endglow). I found the 2.5 mm cable easier to use than the thicker 4mm cable because you can stick it directly in the Bush two hole connector. In a way, the light output is stronger than in the commercial multicore cable. Easy does it! See the picture. For some, a minus point could be that the cable is stiffer than the commercial UWP cables.

Kudo's to Tor for this excellent tip. After a trip to Hornby Island in January where the Stellar Sealions chomped and mangled at least three of my fibre optic cables, I was looking a couple hundred dollars to by all need cables and spares. I started looking into various DIY suggestions, including the use of old Toslink cables. I found the Toslink worked ok, but the fibres were really very thin. I've had reliability problems even with purpose-built cables transmitting enough light.

I decided to try out this suggestion and purchased 5 meters of the 3mm end glow optical fiber recommend here from Amazon at a cost of about $15 US. I already had some modular end plugs form existing (mangled) cables to reuse. It works great! The 3mm cable is very sturdy and transmits a lot of light for a strong signal. I used velcro strip to attach it to my arms, and a bit of Sugru on the end caps to prevent too much bending at the attachment point. Bonus - I have about 2.5 meters of cable in reserve for replacement spares in the field.

I used several times toslink cables as emergency repair and they worked just fine, but i will order some of this end glow cable as spare.
As a endcap is used linerless rubber spicing tape to create a end plug, looks shitty but dies the trick.
A small roll of this tape (and gaffer tape) is always a good idea to carry to remote locations.
Chris