41 replies to this topic

[Alex_Mustard]

I agree that Subal should have only changed the manual (or at least added a extra info sheet) and possibly also the housing! Maybe offering it with 5 pin and 2 pin options rather than 5 and 3 pin options.

I don't talk to Subal direct, but I passed this info back to my dealer at the beginning of March. And I know that Nat Geo had the same problem with their Subal/D2X systems in April.

Three pin connections seem to fine with many strobes, but two works with all.

As a word of encouragement, having made this very small modification I have never had this problem again and I have taken the odd pic with the D2X this year.

Alex

[frogfish]

I knew I was in good hands when I saw your post. Who knows, I might even get this puppy in the water within the next week or two.

One does slightly regret, Alex, that you never considered the military, so that we might be able to talk about "Col. Mustard, in the billiard room, with the D2N housing and the ULCS strobe arm....."

Meanwhile, I'm still considering writing a murder mystery that more or less follow those lines, involving a perplexing series of (creative, of course) homicides using odd bits of gear, perpetrated amongst the members of slighlty oddball community of underwater photography fanatics during their annual meeting. I'm going to call it "Death at DEMA."

Frogfish

[Rocha]

"Cutting the green wire" takes me right back to all those wonderful movies where someone is trying to disarm a bomb as the seconds on a digital clock tick down. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

LOL!! Robert, if you are still nervous about cutting the wire, here is a link for another topic with Alex' photo of the wire and some more discussion about the problem:

http://wetpixel.com/...indpost&p=53165

The only reason I didn't cut mine was because it works with my Ikelites. I did however switch from 5 to 3 pins. I add that it is very hard to pull the connector from the original 5 pin position.

Luiz

[UWPhotoTech]

In the subal you can just cut the green wire (which is the wire for the ready light), so you only have the ground and trigger attached to the camera.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

There is no need to cut any wires. Remove the three screws that retain the hot shoe connector cover and then the two screws that hold the hot shoe circuit board into the hot shoe connector. Lift out the circuit board (brass springs will stay attached to the board) and then turn over the hot shoe connector and the chrome contact pins will fall out. Replace only the center (trigger or X) contact pin and reassemble. Save the pins you removed for future use if you switch to an ITTL strobe.

This method is easily reversible and it does not matter which connector the bulkheads are plugged into.

[ssra30]

There is no need to cut any wires. Remove the three screws that retain the hot shoe connector cover and then the two screws that hold the hot shoe circuit board into the hot shoe connector. Lift out the circuit board (brass springs will stay attached to the board) and then turn over the hot shoe connector and the chrome contact pins will fall out. Replace only the center (trigger or X) contact pin and reassemble. Save the pins you removed for future use if you switch to an ITTL strobe.

This method is easily reversible and it does not matter which connector the bulkheads are plugged into.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Obviously you have never seen me with any tool in my hands
"Easily" is a relative term
I am just gald that Ikelite DS125 with its sync cord are working fine with Subal housing from either 5 pins or 3 pins connector without me having to touch any tool!

[Rocha]

Hi Robert, I just found out that covering the pin indicated at the Ikelite site that I mentioned won't solve your problem. For the solution, check here:

http://wetpixel.com/...ST&f=39&t=11063

Dave, thanks for the instructions!

Luiz

[UWPhotoTech]

Luiz, nice job illustrating my instructions. Hopefully this will help ease the nerves of the "tool weary".

[Alex_Mustard]

Hi Robert, I just found out that covering the pin indicated at the Ikelite site that I mentioned won't solve your problem. For the solution, check here:

http://wetpixel.com/...ST&f=39&t=11063

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That's great work Dave and Luiz. Thanks for posting.

Col. Alex

[frogfish]

Luiz,

This is amazing. Yesterday I was stumped by the D2X-Subal-strobe wiring problem, and fairly sure (and I was correct in this) that I didn't really understand what was going on even after reading the posts on the topic to date. A few posts later, returning to check wetpixel after dinner, I knew I already had enough information to proceed and probably get it resolved. Then I wake up this morning and to find detailed color photos and instructions from Luis showing exactly what I must do and how to do it - and without having to cut the green wire. (The bystanders on the movie set are all relieved).

Reiterating what I posted in response to Luiz's instructions on the DIY thread: this

man is a gentleman and a scholar.

Just to sum up what I think I might now vaguely understand, what the Subal manual should have told us was that:

1. The two sets of internal strobe wiring can be switched from four-pin female connectors to the three-pin connectors.

2. For use with housed Nikon strobes (e.g, SB800), the strobe wires should be left in the 4-pin connectors;

3. Replacing the strobe wiring in the 3-pin connectors defeats the "monitor contact" pin and may be necessary (and sufficient?) for use with some strobes (i.e., Ikelite) in manual mode..

4. With other strobes (e.g., Sea&Sea, Inon, SubStrobe, ???) it is also necessary to defeat the "ready light" pin, which can be accomplished by removing the pin from the hotshoe or cutting the green wire.

Does this make sense?

Thanks again all - Alex, David, uwphoto tech, ssra30, and especially Luiz - for all the help.

Frogfish

[Rocha]

No problem Robert, that's what we are here for! And yes, you are right about your four points above. The only thing is that everybody calls it a five-pin or five wire connection (four pins + the ground contact), but the hotshoe does have only four pins plus ground.

Luiz

[frogfish]

I'm very impressed. Switching the internal connectors from the five-pin banks to the three-pin banks and removing the spring-loaded pin from the hotshoe connector took all of ten minutes. Better yet, I managed to do all this without tearing up the plastic bank connectors in the housing OR stripping the threads or the slots on top of any of the screws, or losing any bits and pieces.

Best of all, it works! Both the new Inon D2000w's and my Sea&Sea YS90DX's worked fine in manual mode. A friend will be carrying my SS200s back from the US next week, so I'll be able to test and hopefully use those as well.

(The Nikonos synch cords (single and double) for the new Inons are the same ones used by Sea&Sea, by the way, so anyone who is interested in these strobes who already has as much synch cord redundancy as they think they need, you won't need to buy new cables.)

At full dump, the new Inons didn't seem to have as much oomph as the YS90DX strobes, but I may not be setting the controls correctly. Just looking at the test shot images on the back of the camera, the color temperature of the Inons seems considerably cooler than the YS90DXs.

Thanks to all again. I hope to get the rig in the water for a few days around Xmas.

Frogfish

[ssra30]

Luiz, thanks for a very nice graphic demo for the tooling challenge
Luckily my next strobe would be a DS200 so hopefully my subal will still requires no fidgeting on my part btw my Subal dealer banned me from having a screwdriver within 5 ft of the housing or else the housing warranty would be void!

[passanisi]

First sorry for my bad english

Ok, today arrived from Seacam the D2X housing, WITHOUT the pin n. 1 (see the photo below)



I connected my two Sea&Seea YS120, and they fired, BUT no photo on memory card! Ok, removed also the pin n. 4 (as recommended from Seacam http://seacamusa.com/d2x-hotshoe.shtml the same!

The solution (adopted last summer with a Nikon D70 and Fantasea housing): replaced pin n. 1 and 4, then removed pin n. 3 (see the photo below)



The flashes fired and finally the photo was on memory card.

The comment? NO COMMENT!!!

[Rocha]

Hi Passanisi,

You pointed out something that I haven't noticed before. The recommendation on the Seacam page works for some but not all strobes, you correctly removed pin 3 which corresponds to the ready light pin. See this page with a recommendation identical to what you did (but using a Subal hotshoe):

http://wetpixel.com/...showtopic=11063

And here is more info on the Nikon hotshoe:

http://mir.com.my/rb...es/fe2/fe2f.htm

You should also remove pin number 1 and 4 if the Seacam has a 5 wire connection to the strobe. I will point this out to the Seacam people.

Thanks,

Luiz

[passanisi]

Thank Luiz!

Another fact: the same day, the identical housing was received by my friend. He uses the same flashes (two Sea&Sea 120), and with the pin n. 1 removed, all works right for him!

A good story for the X-Files, right?

Best regards

Marco

[Rocha]

No problem Marco, I am glad we could help. Thanks to you for pointing it out too, now the following notes were added to the Seacam page and wetpixel article:

Note #1 - The factory configuration with all pins is necessary for i-TTL utilizing Systemflash with Nikon speedlights and Seacam Seaflash 250.

Note #2 - IMPORTANT - When you add a second flash, we recommend you remove the pins in the 1 + 3 + 4 positions. You will, however, lose the ready light signal in the camera's viewfinder from the main flash. Images will write reliably to card this way though, so the tradeoff is reasonable.

Here is a link to the wetpixel article:

http://wetpixel.com/...ndrome-and-fix/

EDIT: There is a new article with detailed instructions from Seacam about this subject:

http://wetpixel.com/...-configuration/

[cor]

Ive seen this problem now also. We have 6 YS90DX strobes and sofar ive never had any problems. Until yesterday. Same issue, image doesnt write sometimes. Ive switched to two older strobes and sofar didnt see the problem anymore. I think one of the strobes is a bit newer than the rest, and that one is probably causing the problems, which would suggest some circuitry changes have been made..?

Cor

[Kasey]

Undoubtably the problem is with newer circuits. I used 4 different YS 120s and never saw this problem until I bought 2 new 120s late last year.

[cor]

Julie just got her Subal ND2 and it looks like Subal has addressed this issue. The strobe connector now comes with only 1 contact, and a little bag of extra contacts you can add if you need them.

Cor

[Steve Simonsen]

D2X flash quirks

I set up my new D2X in an Aquatica housing and was surprised to find out the the housing hot shoe connector only had two pins and the offset one didn't look like it was in the roght position for contact. I get no ready light information in the viewfinder, and I was wondering if this was done intentionally or a defect. Anybody have similar issues?

Steve Simonsen