YA-D3 or something smaller/just as bright..?

[breathein15]

Debating switching to Inon strobes. I like my YS-D3’s…but have had too many issues with water leakage even though I’m meticulous with cleaning.
Your opinion on a smaller/just as a good strobe?

 

[JohnnyQuest]

Do you know that the S&S battery caps are “once and done”? The caps have a blow-off valve. When batteries get wet with sea water, they can release gas, so the caps have a blow-off valve to release the gas. If you get a leak and reuse the battery cap, it will just leak again. Replace the cap, clean out the battery compartment, and you should be good.

 

[breathein15]

Thanks for the info.
I did have water leakage into the rear cap but managed to save the strobe, but recently I just had water leak through the rear exposure knob and it made it seize up. I couldn’t adjust the brightness…it was stuck on “+1.0”.
I sent it to backscatter and had to replace the part. They said it happens from time to time.

I like the battery caps on Inons and that’s making me wanna switch

 

[JohnnyQuest]

Interesting. I haven’t seen or heard of a leak like you described. I’ve dived with YS-D1s for 11 years now. Mine have been quite reliable, but I blew out the flash tubes on each one once and had them rebuilt by Pacific Housing Repair. But after many thousands of flashes, the tubes will blow out on any strobe. I also had one battery compartment flood over the years, but just cleaned it out, put a new cap on, and kept going. Devon at Pacific Housing Repair is an authorized S&S repair center. If finally decided to get new strobes. After a lot of research, I bought YS-D3s based on reviews and my experience with YS-D1s.

 

[staggsSevin]

Right now you'd have to pickup second hand inon's z240's or z330's - I think those would be to two to get the closest to your YS-D3. I'm hoping that in 2025 Inon will release their next flagship strobe (i'm using z330's now). I've been eyeballing the Retra's Pro Max but i'm still holding out that Inon will come out with something worth upgrading to next year....so I can save some coin.

The new Retra Maxi's and Backscatter Hybrids look nice but I prefer something a bit more compact size wise.

 

[bvanant]

There are a whole bunch of new strobes that showed at DEMA (nothing from Inon though).
Bill

 

[cashmorephoto]

Do you know that the S&S battery caps are “once and done”? The caps have a blow-off valve. When batteries get wet with sea water, they can release gas, so the caps have a blow-off valve to release the gas. If you get a leak and reuse the battery cap, it will just leak again. Replace the cap, clean out the battery compartment, and you should be good.

Does it say this somewhere? Maybe I should have read the manual at some point.

 

[JohnnyQuest]

It is not stated in the manual, but this video explains it. I originally learned this from talking to an authorized service center. The blow-off valve is actually visible through a small hole in the cap. If you reuse a cap after a flood, you will most likely continue to have floods.