20D Hot Shoe and Off Camera Shoe Cord Questions

[picturesque]

I recently noticed that on my 20D's hot shoe, there is a very small,

transluscent plastic plug under the prongs of the hotshoe where it

flexes to allow the foot of the flash to be inserted. I assume it

is there to provide resistance and helps tighten the fit. It is on

the left side of the shoe, yet on the right side, there is no such

piece but just a round hole. My question is, did I lose the piece

from the right side or is that the way it is designed? 20D owners,

can you check, please? It's kind of silly, but I would like to know.

 

Also, on my off camera shoe cord, the plate that is on the section

that the flash unit attaches to is kind of loose. I opened this

part up and looked inside but found no way to tighten the plate. Is

this normal or again, have I somehow lost screws or some other part

(s)? Neither of these affects the actual performance of the parts

in question, so I'm not worried, but it would be nice to know.

Thanks in advance... (I did check to see if these questions have

been asked before. If they have, sorry.)

[jcolwell]

My 20D has the same small, transluscent plastic plug on the left side (as you look at the back). I'd guess that it is a switch to tell the camera that something is in the shoe. My off camera shoe cord 2 fits OK, but my ST-E2 IR Remote is a bit loose. As long as it works, I'm using it (what, me worry ? A.E.N.)

[steve_dunn2]

<p>That's part of the microswitch used to detect when there's something mounted in the hot shoe so that the pop-up flash won't pop up and bang into it. My 20D and Elan 7E both have this, though the Elan's is black.</p>

 

<p>This switch is part of a fairly well-known problem which occasionally happens to a variety of EOS bodies; the switch gets stuck and the pop-up flash no longer pops up. It doesn't happen terribly frequently but every now and then someone will post about it.</p>

[jeffrey_blake_adams]

My off shoe cord was also loose, it worked fine, but I use it everyday and was worried it might fail, sent to canon, they fixed it asap and I gotit back within a week! It is no longer loose. They provided top customer service. Jeff

[bill_goldman]

I believe you can easily repair your OCSC2 by carefully prying the thin metal plate out of the hot shoe to gain access to the exposed screws.

[jimstrutz]

Here's a picture of the process Bill is talking about.<div></div>

[jimstrutz]

Look at:

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=000xmg

 

Photo.net's beloved Todd Frederick posted this drawing of the process as it applies to the Canon EOS 5. As you can read there, it's still an active thread that applies to lots of Canon cameras. This is mostly used by people trying to fix the sticking microswitches that you noticed. The EOS 5 has them on both sides for some reason.

[cliff_henry]

Nadine,

 

On my 20D there is the plastic plug (switch) under the flexible prong on the left side, from back, of the hot shoe. The flexible prong is also on the right side but there is no plactic plug. Not able to see the hole on the right side because the flexible prong covers it.

 

I have read about two different versions of the OCSC-2. One has small screws under the shoe plate which allow you to tighten it. The other has rivits in place of screws and tightening it would be a Canon repair.

 

Cliff

[picturesque]

Thanks a lot, everyone, and thanks for the link. I will try to do the plate removal trick. I think mine has screws under the plate--I thought it looked like the underside of screws when I opened the flash shoe end of the cord but I was afraid to mangle the top plate since I didn't know how it was attached.

[conraderb]

hi folks - After repairing my Canon 20D flash hot shoe, I thought it would be helpful to share this tutorial of images showing the repair job.

 

here is the link:

 

http://www.conraderb.com/flashrepair

 

I know that some people have described this before, but I think that having the images of the repairs make it much easier to understand than words.

 

(note to moderators: I am posting this here because we tend to use our flash shoes a whole lot and I suspect that it would be helpful to Nikon users as well. if you think that it should be moved, that's fine.)

 

conrad erb

conrad erb photography

http://www.conraderb.com