Sea & Sea and Inon Z240 connections and cables

[Ardy]

Hi All

I got some great advice whilst looking for a new strobe I thought I would give you my thoughts on the new set up and how it works. see OP here http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/st...nybody-used-sns-110a-ttl-olympus-e-520-a.html

I was looking to replace an old SnS YS 50 manual slave with either another SnS 110a to match what I had or another master and turn my 110a into a slave strobe.

The Inon Z240-4 is what I bought off ebay from a great guy in the Phillipines for $670 and the major worry was would the SnS and the Inon work together.

Built a cable for the Z240 ($5) using a 8mm blanking grommet from car parts supplier and a piece of optical cable. The rubber connector to my Olympus housing already existed. Set both cameras on TTL and the camera on manual and tested them. They work perfectly and seem not to double up on TTL flash which is what I was concerned about. The TTL seems to not work so well at distance but that is not an issue. It also works on program mode but not as well as manual.

I tested it from a low fstop to a high one and seems to expose exactly the same each time.

Very happy camper and looking forward to my next dive.

 

[Lyndon]

interested to know how you built the cable.

 

[Ardy]

Hi Lyndon - it is ridiculously easy. I was concerned until I went to an electronics store to attach a cable to my manual SnS YS 50 about 2 years ago. They sold me a small roll of 3m of Optical Cable, an attachment that glues to the front of my old flash and my Olympus DSLR housing has 2 push in OC attachment plugs.

From this experience on an old, dont mind if I bugger it up flash, I now build all my own cables and as the only thing you have to do is get the light from the internal camera flash to the underwater flash it is very easy.

The SnS 110a has a built in attachment at the front of the flash where you stick the cable and the housing is as described above. The 110a also has a holder to keep cable out of the way. The Inon has a plug that covers the light sensor at the bottom and I took out the grommet that sits in it and kept it, I could have drilled a 2mm hole and put cable through the grommet. Anyway I found a rubber/plastic plug 8mm from a car parts shop and drilled that and pushed the cable through there.

The advantage of doing it yourself is that not only do you:
1. save best part of $100
2. you can also cut the cable to suit the length you want
3. If the cable is stuffed I am not without a flash as I always have a couple of meters with me to cut a new one from

All in all a good solution.

 

[nasubi_neko]

Interesting! I was thinking about using my INON D2000 strobes for Sea&Sea Nikon housing, but I wasn't sure how to connect them. You modified INON attachment side on cable, right? That's exactly what I need to do. Is it possible to see photos of your work?

 

[Lyndon]

Thanks Ardy. I have to do something like this to hook up my Inon S2000 to my Olympus housing which has a sea & sea connector

If you could post some pics it would help a LOT!

Thanks.

 

[slowhands]

The cable is made for audio systems, called TOS Link by one brand name. It is readily available on ebay if not in a local store for around $5 for a 1 meter cable. It comes with a metal connector on both ends that could be jam fitted into the strobe, but it will rust and get ugly (see thumbnail below). Just cut off the connector and use the rubber plug from the auto store, drilled. Or for $3, you can buy an actual Inon plug for the fiber connector, see below.

This fiber cord is thicker than the typical fiber cable supplied by Inon or Sea&sea, but that is mostly just plastic sleeve and makes it more durable anyway. It is not coiled. A little different than the commercial product but the photons are happy.

Sea&Sea gets $80-100 for this cable, Olympus $110-125 depending on the dealer. It is not worth it to me, when with a little effort I can make one.