Need Information on a Nikonos strobe.

[jbop65]

Hello everyone.For Christmas my wife bought me a used Strobe off of Craigs List the ladies husband was a diver for many years and had used this strobe until he passed recently.
The strobe is a Nikonos SB 102 she believes the batteries are dead in it.
I have no idea where I can get batteries for this strobe I thought I read somewhere it takes 4 alkenline batteries.

could someone give me a price and location of a place where I can purchase batteries for this strobe.Also will I be able to set the strobe to manual to take pictures since my digital camera and housing don't have a place to connect a sync cord for the flash.

Sorry new at this.Thank you for your help.

John

 

[bvanant]

The strobe uses C-type batteries (6 of them). You can use any of the NiMH rechargeable batteries. For a manual on the strobe go to
http://www.cameramanuals.org/flashes_meters/nikon_sb-102-1.pdf
The manual says to use 1.5 V alkaline batteries or NiCad but it is my understanding that NiMH will work as well. The strobe can be fired in Slave mode but whether or not your rig can fire it will need experimental confirmation.
Bill

 

[spoolin01]

I would check with Nikon before using NiMH - I'm pretty sure I've blown out at least two SB-102s from using NiMH, though I've done a few dives with SB-102s + NiMH without problem. Somewhere I recall hearing that the 102 wasn't designed for the low internal resistance of NiMH. The strobe uses a battery tray - which hopefully came with your strobe.

The 102 should function as a slave strobe that will trigger from your camera flash - the sensor is in the strobe front face, if I recall. The flash will only be timed right if your camera doesn't use a pre-flash, or if the pre-flash can be disabled. Many cameras have a 'slave' flash setting that eliminates the pre-flash. I've only used a few point and shoot digitals and from what I know this is how most or all of them work (pre-flash that must be 'disable-able'), for them to work with a slave. Also, with the sensor in the front face of the strobe, the puny camera flash may not trigger it - you could try a piece of fiber-optic cable to channel the camera strobe up to the sensor.

There are also options to achieve TTL control from HW , but you'll have to check with them whether your combination of camera and strobe will work with any of their devices. I seem to recall the 102 may not be a good candidate...

I'm just a hack U/W photographer, but I've found you can get good results with slave flash photography. It would run you a little more money but if you get an Ikelite DS50 or DS51 and their EV-Controller, you have a lighter, smaller package with 10 levels of user-settable strobe output, that is NiMH (4 x AA) compatible. Ikelite still supports that equipment, as well.

 

[bvanant]

My understanding of internal resistance is that NiCad cells have a lower internal resistance than the equivalent NiMH cell and in fact have the lowest internal resistance of any battery chemistry so that explanation might not be correct. My take is that the low internal discharge batteries like the Maha ones should be fine in that application but I have no direct experience with the 102 but several folks that we dive with use them with 5500 NiMH batteries. I agree that getting a modern strobe would be far better.
Bill

 

[spoolin01]

Hmmm... I see that's true, NiCd is quite a bit lower than NiMH, according to something I googled up. There must be more to the story, here's what Ikelite told me about internal resistance and new vs. old batteries. http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ikelite/272323-rebuilding-6-d-4-d-battery-packs.html

Maybe it was just coincidence but one day while testing some SB-102s with NiMH, two working strobes blew out in succession, flashed once (at least), then nevermore. When I used NiMHs with that model strobe while diving, I think they were 3500 mAH. I also have 4500 mAH that may have been what I was testing with later. Don't know what if any of this data relates to the blowouts.