Mamiya C3 Lens and Flash not firing.

[kblessinggr]

I have two lens for the Mamiya C3 Pro, a 65mm wide angle, and a 105mm

lens. Both have PC-Sync plugins on the top of the lens, and both are

set to "X" instead of "M". However when using a PC-Sync to Hotshoe

adapter, and using either my Vivitar 283, or Sunpak PZ5000AF, the

flash will not fire when the shutter is released. They both will fire

just fine with the same adapter off a Lubitel 166U , and off a Yashica

Mat-124G , but not off either of the Mamiya Lens, is there something

I'm missing here?

[skygzr]

Karl -

 

Your flash ought to be firing.

 

There's really not much to go wrong here....when the shutter fires, it shorts out the flash connection to ground. Pop!

 

There's a wire leading from the shutter to the PC connection, the other half of the circuit is the body of the lens.

 

The wire might have come disconnected from the PC terminal. I seem to recall this happening in a Mamiya C lens I had.

[dennis_oconnor3]

Borrow a flash that desn't need the hotshoe adapter and see if the lenses are triggering the flash head... If so, you have an adapter problem.. If not, you have a lens(es) problem... Being it's both lenses I suspect the adapter is being Lucy Fussbudget...

 

denny

[lata]

My guess is that the shutter needs cleaning.

[graham_patterson1]

If neither lens is tripping the flash, I think it is a loose PC cord connection to the lens. The flash terminal on these lenses has to be gripped from the outside. Try crimping the outside of the end of the PC cord slightly to get a better connection.

 

It is possible that the lenses have broken flash wires. There is a single wire leading to the flash contact on the lens, and the return is through the metal of the lensboard. Sometimes the wire breaks, but it isn't easy to see. You can test this using a resistance meter.

[pavelp]

What Graham says. I had a problem with flash not firing about two months ago and it all got solved just by taking long-nose pliers and squeezing the PC connector a little. No problems since then.

[kblessinggr]

Figured it out, the outside is fine, whats different is that the hole in the middle on both lens are significantly wider diameter than the tiny pin in the middle of the PC sync cable, so it basically sisnt even touching in the middle.

[kblessinggr]

Fixed it by bending the pin inside ever so slightly to the side just a little, just enough to where it'll come in contact with the wall of the inner socket, and works with both now.