Anyone taken apart an SB-20?

Hi. My SB-20 developed a fault where it would only fire intermittently (both on

camera and using the on-flash trigger button). It has now ceased working

altogether. I'm taking it apart to see if there's anything obviously wrong

inside, but I don't really know what I'm doing. I suspect moisture is the cause.

Anything I should look out for?

If moisture is the cause I would dry it. Can you put it into the sun for a few hours? Is there any fairly dry place to store it for a few days? Can you store it in a plastic bag or container together with a large amount of desiccant? There is very little that can be done inside if you say: "don't really know what I'm doing."

Please be very careful.

There is extremely high voltage in a flash unit.

I have never taken apart that flash, but I once took apart a compact film camera which had a flash and... I must tell you to be careful with capacitors. In that camera, as you can suppose, there was a really small flash, and it had an acordingly small capacitor (I suppose). The camera had been without batteries for more than a week, but when I took the camera apart, when I touched a part of it (I couldn't identify it exactly) it gave quite a harmful discharge. With the first discharge I thought it would have drained the electricity it had stored, but the same thing happended three of four times.

 

Bearing in mind that the capacitor in your flash will be A LOT bigger, I would be carefull and, just in case, using gloves could be a good idea.

"... but I don't really know what I'm doing."

 

Then to be blunt, you really should not be taking one apart. As others have noted above, the capacitor in an electronic flash can store a SIGNIFICANT amount of high voltage electrical energy. As in enough to stop / scramble your heart rhythm in a worse case scenario. BE CAREFUL!

Thanks for all the warnings, in light of which, I've decided to give up on the disassembly idea. Sun-baking the flash for a day didn't work. I'll try that again, and worst case, ditch it and get another one.