Vivitar 285HV won't fire

<p>I used this flash with an old Minolta srt100 and always used a little power cord going to the body of the camera. Then I sold it. Today I got this from th guy who bought my Flash unit. Anybody have any ideas what's going on?<br /> <br /> I put in some AAs and it test fired beautifully. So I put it in my gear back for Thursday's shoot. Just before the shoot I set up all of my equipment and tried testing my flashes with my wireless triggers. Everything worked great except for your 285. It will no fire from a hot-shoe. The test button works but nothing else will fire it. I tried it on several different triggers as well as on each of my dSLRs (a D200 and a D40). <br /> <br /> More info<br /> <br /> 1. I'm attempting to fire the flash from a hot-shoe, the way it was designed. The little chord is for cameras that have a "cold" shoe. I did try to fire the strobe with my D200 and the sync-chord but that did not work either.<br /> <br /> 2. I have several 285hvs, both vintage and the new models made in china. Haven't had the issue with any other items.<br /> <br /> Any ideas out there?</p>

<p>I may be recalling incorrectly but I think you have to remove the PC cord to make the shoe work. If I recall correctly, it's an either/or system.<br>

Henry Posner<br /> <strong>B&H Photo-Video</strong></p>

<p>I think Henry is right that if the cable is connected to the flash it won't function off the hotshoe. I don't believe the cable needs to be connected to the PC synch port on the camera to cease the hotshoe function, I think so long as it is simply attached to the 285hvs plug it will cease the hot shoe function. I can give it a try later tonight when I get home if you'd like.</p>

<p>That would be great if you would try, Matthew. Also, from your understanding, should this be able to work with a Digital Rebel, just using the hot shoe? (as long as the unit is working properly?)</p>

<p>When the PC cord is inserted into the base of the Vivitar, it pushes away a contact that cuts off the hot-shoe connection similar to the way that plugging a set of headphones into a stereo amplifier cuts off the speakers. It's quite possible that the contact inside the Vivitar has gotten permanently stuck in the position that disconnects the hot shoe. If that's the case, he should still be able to use the unit perfectly fine by plugging the PC cord into the PC connection on his radio trigger.</p>

<p>Two of my eight 285HVs will not fire from the hot shoe but will fire from the synch cord. They have heavy blue rubber bands around the heads to indicate which ones they are.</p>

<p>I recall seeing replacement feet for the 283/285/285HV on eBay from time to time, I gather that this is a pretty common failure mode. As long as the blue rubber bands don't outnumber my Vivitar synch cables, I'm happy. In fact, my main camera has a dead hot shoe but a working PC socket, so using one of the Vivitars with a dead hot foot on the camera with a dead hot shoe is a good match.</p>

<p>In this case, it sounds like the synch cable doesn't work either, so this unit may have more severe problems. I haven't ever tried to open them up to see if anything in there can be cleaned up or not. The fact that the test button works means that the problem definitely is in the foot rather than in the connection through the hinge or any of the actual circuitry in the flash.</p>

<p>Van</p>

<p>I checked it last night and Craig is correct on the behavior and likely causes of the problem.</p>

<p>Most of the replacement feet for Vivitars I have seen are actually "cold" rather than "hot" and require use of the PC cord to connect the flash. The classic ones that were made for years were a block of machined aluminum and the intent was to provide something sturdy rather than the flimsy plastic that is standard. Even if the hot shoe connection on a Vivitar isn't working I don't see that as a problem as it's easy enough to connect with the cord, and people who have replaced the plastic shoe with the heavy duty metal shoes have had to do that anyhow.</p>