Sea & Sea Fiber Cable in Kailua-Kona [need now 7/31]

[bmorescuba]

[[Posted 7/31/21 16:05 HST]]

Hi there,

Anyone have any ideas where I could find a Sea & Sea fiber optic cable for firing strobes in the Kailua-Kona area? Just arrived and my friend's cable is not functioning. Tried Jack's Diving Locker and Kona Honu - no luck. Tried Amazon prime - earliest they could get it here would be Thursday (maybe). That doesn't help. I'm looking to pick one up tomorrow. If retail isn't an option, anyone have one they'd like to sell or rent for the week? My friend's pictures are going to be awfully blue without this cable.

Thanks!!

 

[ibj40]

I initially read this as Sealife, so if the below is inappropriate, I apologize.

“Curious as to why a fiber optic cable is not working.

is there a kink in it somewhere?

As a long shot, you might take a nail clipper and cut a little bit off each end.

Good Luck!”

 

[fmerkel]

Try to shine a regular bright (dive) light through it. If a bright dot does not appear on the other end, it's broken. They tend to break right at the end where it goes into the plug part.
You might be able to tell by wiggling suspicious area carefully.
Some, not all, cables have an end that can be disassembled. If so, open it up, cut off the 2-3mm of broken end, and put it back together. If broken in the middle, you now may have a reach problem.
If not, you are out of luck and will need a replacement.

 

[NorCalDM]

You could try Kona Honu Divers they have some camera equipment in the store. Also could try Blue Wilderness in the Queens shopping center and then up the coast you have Kohala Divers.

 

[bmorescuba]

Thanks for the suggestions! None of the dive shops on the BI had any in stock. But, with some tape and some cajoling, we've got it to fire about 75% of the time. Hopefully, it holds out the rest of the week...

 

[Hoag]

What I am about to recommend is not intended as a final solution, but only as a short term fix to get you back in the water.

If there is a local Lowes or Home Depot or similar hardware store, look in their lighting and electrical section for Fiber Optic Cable used for audio systems. It will have connectors on the ends that are not right for Sea & Sea fitting. These connectors will have to be cut off using a razor blade, a very sharp knife, or as one person mentioned above nail clippers. Once the cable is cut to the length that you want, wrap the ends with electrical tape until it will fit into the Sea & Sea "Female" opening on your housing and your strobe. Be careful when wrapping the tape not to cover any of the core of the optical fiber.

This should work and it should cost around $20. It won't be pretty, but it should be reliable.

As a possible free solution, it the friend has two strobes and one functioning cable, is the trigger on the strobe sensitive enough that it might trigger off of the connected strobe?