Digital radio slave triggers

[chrisjb]

Hi on this site on ebay http://www.joesphotoauction.com/ there are

some radio slave triggers at a very economical price(under $50). The

manufacturer claims them to be Canon friendly as while the trigger

voltage is 12v and canon Dslr need 6v the trigger current is very low

doing no damage to contacts.Has anyone seen or tried these units? I

want to use one transmitter with a reciever on each studio strobe as

I`m fed up with happy snappers shooting from behind setting of

strobes when shooting team photos and event photos .The units are

battery op with a 12v bat. in the transmitter and 2 AA`s in the rec.

 

Imput much appreciated...chris

[alec_holst]

i have had one of these and it was a very bad experience. i can go into detail if you want, but trust me i would never buy them again.

[brian_tao]

You get what you pay for, I suppose! Can you give us a rundown on your (bad) experiences with these slaves?

[alec_holst]

sure thing. i bought the a transmitter and two receivers from him and at first they seemed to work ok except for a lot of random fires that im guessing was due to intereference. about three days after i got them one receiver stopped working completely, i didn't drop it or anything. so i talked to joe and wasted time and money by sending it back for a new receiver. i got a "new" reciever that didn't work at all, i double checked everything. i now think he sent me the same reciever i sent him the first time. anyways i send back the reciever and he says it works...yea right. at that time i still had one reciever that worked untill the pc socket came out, keep in mind these are made very cheap out of thin plastic. i tried fixing it myself with no luck. i still have the transmitter and one reciever that i guess would work if i new more about electronics, and i got $80 back out of the $100 total i spent. i have heard of other people who got these and had similar experiences like mine and others who said they dropped it once and it shattered completely.

 

my conclusion: you may get lucky and get a set that works, but i sure didn't. one good thing is you can return them for your money back like i did. but keep in mind you get what you pay for and these are made very cheaply. good luck

[Rob_L1664876404]

If you're talking about the YHDC transmitter/reciever set, I have one and have been very pleased with it. I use it on a Digital Rebel with Novatron lights... no problems at all!

[rdkirk]

I bought a couple of sets each of three different models to test them out. I had generally good luck with them (one needed a new transmitter battery. One receiver--the toad-shaped AC model with the big green button--was DOA, but that was not from "joe's auctions"), but clearly the best built and most reliable is the 4-channel AC-powered model. I suspect that because it's a higher-level model, they've got it on a better assembly line.

 

Understanding the limitations (primarily, short range...only 50-60 feet by my tests), mine have tested well without significant problem. The only consistent problem has been the sizing of the negative hotshoe contacts in the transmitter--they tend to be too small and narrow, and may not fully contact a hotshoe that's on the outside limit of its own specs. In that case, the PC cable will work.

 

Supposedly, even though the sync trigger is nominally 12 volts (the ISO standard), they are safe for Canon consumer cameras (limited to 6 volts at the sync trigger) because of very, very low amperage. Well, I was always taught that with ICs, it's voltage that kills, not amps, so I was pretty dubious of that claim.

 

However, when I checked them with a voltmeter, I found them all to be under 6 volts. This may be a fairly recent modification--it was constant in all the transmitters I have. At any rate, they all did work with a Wein Safe Sync (which is also contrary to a report I'd read).

 

I'm confident in them enough to use the 4-channel AC model professionally, but I'm wary enough to keep a backup set, plus sync cords. Then again, I'm a 60s space-race redundancy freak; I'd do that even with Pocket Wizards.

[john_jovic]

Pocket Wizard...

compact, light, tough, reliable, huge range, end of discussion.

JJ