I'm stumped and seeking help from the community. Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to provide all the details.
For the last three years or so, I have been shooting with two YS-D2s; one YS-D2J (yellow, "D2J") and one China-made (black, "D2"). My understanding is that the D2 and D2J are identical in all specifications and functionality and only differ in where they were manufactured. I'm using a Sony A7RIV in a Marelux housing with a Marelux flash trigger, and fiber optic cables. The strobes worked flawlessly until I blew out the flash tube on the D2 on a recent trip to Raja Ampat.
Thus, I bought a used YS-D2 (China) to replace the old one. The problem is that I can't get this new (used) strobe to fire like my old D2 and my D2J.
I'm shooting in manual mode with both strobes set up in parallel and with the same settings (the old D2J and the new (used) D2). The D2J fires perfectly every time, but nothing out of the D2. I have switched cables and connection points to the flash trigger with the same results. I have cleaned out the flash trigger sensor connection. I have changed the batteries in the flash trigger. I have used all different settings. I have ensured the "customize mode" is set the same, although it shouldn't matter if I put both in manual mode (green light). Both strobes show they're ready to fire with a strong green light. The D2 would not fire regardless of Mode (manual w pre-flash, manual, or TTL)
A couple of things further complicate the picture. The seller of the used strobe had tested it and showed me that it had indeed fired with the setup that they used (I'm not sure exactly which setup they had). This could indicate potential issues with my setup.
Further, after much testing back and forth, I managed to get the strobe to fire when connecting it to the D2J strobe as a slave rather than directly to the flash trigger (connecting the fiber optic cable from the port for an additional strobe of the D2J to the normal slave port of the D2, but this is obviously not the way I want it set up. This worked for the manual and TTL modes, but not for the pre-flash mode (the latter as expected). The one difference here is that the flash trigger is red while the slave trigger from the D2J is white, and clearly more powerful. Why would it trigger from the D2J but not from the flash trigger, when my original D2, and my D2J had no problems doing so? And would the color of the flash trigger matter?
Continuing my troubleshooting, I was able to trigger the strobe just by holding up the fiber optic cable to a compact digital camera flash (white).
So what could possibly be wrong, or what can I be doing wrong? Is there a setting for the strobe that I'm not aware of? Could the D2J trigger be more sensitive than the D2 despite identical specifications? But if so, why did my old one fire perfectly? The flash trigger emits a red flash rather than a white flash. Would this impact in some way (but why would this be different between my old D2 and the new D2)? Could the new (used) D2 be an older version with slightly different specs and therefore not be compatible with the newer flash trigger?
I would love to have any ideas you might have in either troubleshooting or solutions. I'm at wits end.
Many thanks in advance for your help.
