At Fixya.com, our trusted experts are meticulously vetted and possess extensive experience in their respective fields. Backed by a community of knowledgeable professionals, our platform ensures that the solutions provided are thoroughly researched and validated.
My Sunpak 383 will not fire when directly mounted to the camera (the hot shoe). The unit will fire when using a sync cord. I tried another flash unit and the camera successfully fired the flash (so I don't think it is a camera problem). I'm guessing I'm not getting a good connection between flash mount and hot shoe. What can be done to remedy this?? Thanks for any help.
MIKE
Try to trigger it by shorting Center of shoe mount and the side terminal with a small wire.If it is firing the flash is ok. If not there is open connection in the sync jack ,due to repeated inserting of sync chord.The springy part inside is not going back to its normal position. You can fix it your self by opening it(adapter only) .If you are new to this take a photo of the wiring immediately after opening the shoe adapter to see the position if any wire breaks later on. Do not give up .383 is great flash
- If you need clarification, ask it in the comment box above.
- Better answers use proper spelling and grammar.
- Provide details, support with references or personal experience.
Tell us some more! Your answer needs to include more details to help people.You can't post answers that contain an email address.Please enter a valid email address.The email address entered is already associated to an account.Login to postPlease use English characters only.
Tip: The max point reward for answering a question is 15.
Before you attach it to your camera you must check the trigger voltage first, never use an old flash unit until you check the trigger voltage with a multimeter, most old flash units have a huge trigger voltage that will damage your camera.
Very simple to check the voltage on that Sunpak 622, turn on your volt meter and set it to about 200 volts DC, turn on your Sunpak flash and apply the RED lead to the bottom contact, apply the Black lead to the side of the hot shoe and look for the ground, usually a small metal piece on the side. Now look at the meter, if it shows a voltage of 6 volts or less then it is safe to use on your camera, if voltage is higher, say 12 volts or more, don't use it. A high trigger voltage will certainly mess up your camera in the long run. Even if it has a safe voltage of 6 volts or less, you will only be able to use that flash in Manual Mode, the newer cameras will not sync or recognize an old flash unit.
I have an old Vivitar flash unit that I can safely use on my Canon XTI because the old vivitar has a trigger voltage of 5 volts, safe for all newer digital cameras.
The 544 connects to a camera via the PC cord (in this case "PC" has nothing to do with personal computers). The D3000 doesn't have a PC port, so you have to use something like the AS-15. The AS-15 mounts onto the hot shoe on top of the camera and provides a PC port.
There can be one of many parts which is gone : Flash tube,capacitor,trigger cap.or triggering switch. Warning as it has 330 volts even when battery is removed do not open if you are not aware of the risks. Sunpak 383 contains no bulbs inside.
If you know basic soldering, Open the old hot shoe from base (4 screws).Note down the position of the wires. Try to fire the flash with shorting two trigger wires,most ly it will fire. If the springy contact is adjustable do it.If it is not repairable, you can get metal hot shoe from ebay easily. Caution: metal hot shoe will short circuit 4 TTL contacts (on digital camera) ,so you need to put cello tape at bottom of hot shoe with only center hole. Hope this solves.
Your strobe is faulty and needs repair at a trained service center. The actual culprit may be the voltage converter circuit that supplies the high voltage to the flash capacitor, or the voltage divider that drives the ready lamp and, at the same time, makes triggering possible.
You can use the Sunpak on a bracket with a "slave trigger" and fire the slave with the Nikon's pop-up flash. I do the same with a SunPak 3600 Auto Zoom. Just remember not to have the red-eye feature operating. Those little slave triggers are only a couple of dollars and I already had few brackets.
×