Strobe won't fire, any ideas?

[Doubler]

My wife is new to Underwater photography so I bought her a Canon T2i and Ikelite setup. She is intiminated by dual strobes and all the arms so I purchased a used Inon Ring Strobe, a new Inon to Ikelite cable and had a custom port manufactured for the strobe and the housing. It all fits together great and is very compact. My problem is the strobe will not fire except in the test mode. Camera settings are Manual, F22, 1/60. Strobe has been tried on TTL, Full, 1/2 and 1/4. Nothing. Any help is appreciated.

 

[bvanant]

Can you test it on a non-ike housing, or test the housing/cable with a different Inon strobe?

Bill

 

[Doubler]

Bill, that would be a "no" to both questions.

 

[bvanant]

The reason that I ask is that there are multiple possibilities. The first is the hot shoe connection, I have had several issues with those in the past. Second is the syn c cord which I have also had problems with. I can send you an Inon strobe to try if that will help.
Bill

 

[PatW]

Bvanant is right, sometimes the hot shoe will "inch" forward and not make adequate contact. Also taking off the synch cord at the strobe and the housing and reseating it and screwing it in pretty far might do the trick. It sounds as if your strobe is firing up and the ready light is on, so it probably is not the battery.

If all else fails, you can send it back to Ikelite for them to fool with.

 

[Doubler]

Bill,
Thank you very much for the offer. I'm going to try it with my camera and housing and see if it works. I'll let you know.

Jim

 

[Doubler]

Bill et al,
I now have a VERY HAPPY Spouse and Dive buddy. I took the whole system apart and swapped out one piece at a time with my rig. Nada, so I disconnected and re-connected the sync cabel at the strobe end, again, and BLAM she fired and fired and fired. Lesson learned test fire before water entry don't assume it will work.

Bill I'll send you some photos of the rig, if you'd like. Reef Photo did an outstanding job with the machined metal custom port. My only issue is they didn't make the inside diameter big enough for the focus ring, not sure if they did it on purpose or just a simple oversight.

Thanks a bunch for your help, your old baby is in good hands.

Jim

 

[cudachaser]

I have a check list velcrod to my housing before I take my rig into the water...Even after hundreds of dives, I still make mistakes...the check list keeps me focussed

 

[cudachaser]

These new cameras are so complicated...not like the old Nikonis, f5.6, 60th sec and 3ft was all you had to remember.

 

[bvanant]

I would love to see some and some photos taken with it in action.
Bill