Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

Few weeks ago we used it with no problems at a shoot. Got home charged it - next shoot we got about 1/3 through it and it would no longer fire the strobe. The lights were all on and fans running but just get a faint click out of the strobes when tried to fire. Got home charged it again and the next morning all seemed ok.

Yesterday, took it to another shoot and it never fired a strobe once. Instantly it just got the faint click out of the strobe when trying to fire. After the 1 try the dump light on the back of the strobe just blinked, never got the ok light to come up.

I just now plugged in a strobe again to it - it has just sat since yesterday - no charging or anything. Now the strobes are firing again, I don't know how long they will go for and it seems a bit slow on cycle than usual.

I bought mine from you on 1/6/2009 so it is about a year and a half old.

Any help on this would be appreciated as I can't trust this in the field and need it to perform again.

Thanks !

Ben

The faint clicking sound is not necessarily a Vagabond issue per se, it is more likely in the head(s). If the Vagabond never sounded the low power indicator, but still powered the lights, it is putting out power. This begs the question of what if any remotes were used? If you used anything that plugs into the RJ11 jack (the telephone jack) this could bypass somethings inside the light, causing the low output flick. This may or may not be a procedural issue or an issue in the head or Vagabond. If there is no use of the RJ11 jack, then it is likely an issue in the head.

Give a few more details and we can start trouble shooting.

I have been using the CyberSync CRSB+ through the RJ11 jack. Both times this happened I was using this jack instead of the 1/8" jack. I have used this connection before without issue.

The Vagabond has never sounded a low power indicator. When I tested them yesterday morning, I didn't use any triggers. Just fired them by hitting the test button.

If this is being caused by the RJ11 jack. I will go back to the 1/8" jack.

Thanks for the help and quick response!

Well, the RJ11 jack can be contributing to the issue, but it is supposed to work. We need to now figure out why it is not working.

First, are you using the CyberCommander? If not, then you should be using the 1/8 jack.

Next, make sure the power level slider on the light is set to the far right and all model lamp buttons are pushed in.

Did you go through the set up sequence by going to "SETUP">"OPEN MEMORY">"OPEN FROM STUDIO"? if you jsut assigned lights to channels without this, then that can cause issues. This only needs to be done once. If you save this set up, you can then open the saved configuration on subsequent shoots.

Do the lights and remotes work OK in the wall? When the little flicker of flash happens, check the CC to ensure the flashes are not set to the "standby" setting (this would be shown as a grey dash on the bottom of the channel column (assuming you did the open from studio). If so, then go into the menu setting and turn it from "STANDBY" to "ON".

Also, if the lights are set to "ON", try hitting the "REFRESH" command once the lights are hooked up and on. "REFRESH" is activated by pressing up on the right hand joystick on CyberCOmmanders with version 29 firmware (it will say "REFRESH" in the lower right corner of the screen).

I am not using a CyberCommander. I just added an ab1600 and have not gotten out to get velcro to attach the CyberSync to it. So we were just using the RJ11 and looping it over the handle to keep it from falling out for the time being.

It worked fine the first couple times but now its not. Its not just the 1600 head either, the first time this happened I thought something happened to the 1600 so we grabbed one of my ab400's and it did the same thing. When I get home then, plug both of them in without the trigger and they just fired away. Really frustrating.

The only thing we have changed was using the RJ11 jack.

I will go back to the 1/8 jack and do some testing this week and hopefully that will take care of the issue.

Thanks for your time and help!

Just wanted to know if you have resolved the issue with your Vagabond II. I own a VBII from 07 and it seems to work OK. But, latey I have been reading posts about issues with the VBIIs. This concerns me because I am looking to order another one and it sounds like there are problems with the one's currently going out the door. Of course, that may be due to the fact that there are more VBII owners out there now then there were 3-4 years ago and this forum wasn't up yet to hear about any issues.

So if I may ask TS. Is there any way of knowing if PCB is working on fixing any issues that PCB is aware of with the VBII? I would rather wait for a later production line with issues fixed. Thanks

RMS

The issue was not the VII. It was using the RJ11 jacks without a CC.