Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

I thought I'd wait until I got all my stuff setup and ask all my questions at once instead of bombing the forum with questions. Oh and I got my B800 replaced. Literally spent less than 2 minutes on the phone; thank you for the great customer service.


So on to the questions..

1. I think? I read somewhere there's no off button on the Cyber Commander and that it just stays in standby. Well it drained the batteries that came with it in less than 6 days. I don't know if it's suppose to be that quick or if the batteries that came with it sucked. After I got the lights and commander setup, I decided to take the batteries out. Both flashes fired. I tried putting the batteries back in but the screen was messed up, just kept flashing the firmware screen. I left it alone for a few minutes and put it back in; it was back to normal. Did I do something wrong? Should I have turned off the strobes first or taken the receivers out or..? As of right now I'm afraid to take the batteries out again.

2. After the commander started working again, it wouldn't fire the strobes. Dump light was on but the test fire button wouldn't release all the extra power. It let off a faint spark. After reconnecting the receivers they both let off a flash and worked again. Is that the right way to operate this? Or am I harming the unit?


*I used this site to setup the commander. http://glamourphotography.co/gear/paul- ... al-set-up/

If this is not correct please let me know!


Sorry for these potentially stupid questions, I'm constantly checking the forums for answers but I figured I'd ask here too. Thanks in advance.

Taking the batteries out of the CC is completely harmless. However, keep in mind that everything in the CC gets reset to factory defaults if the CC loses power. So, if you set the frequency to anything other than the default, for instance, that value will be lost if the batteries die or get removed. It's a bit of a pain, but that's how it works.

You tend to use up batteries faster at first because you are still learning the system and the CC screen is on a lot. After that the batteries should last a long time (months). It seems that there are some cases where the CC is draining batteries fast but Tech Support knows that situation better than us. I haven't run across the locked-up on battery removal issue before though. :?:

Just like your TV remote, if no buttons or contacts are being pressed, the Commander is virtually asleep when the screen is off. It sounds as though your Cyber Commander is draining batteries faster than normal. More on this will come soon (probably today). The rest of the issues are likely a side effect of the battery drain, however we may have to take another look at that later.




The light flick and dump light are not abnormal when the Cyber Commander gets reset. That means the recievers are awaiting a command. Pressing up on the right joystick refreshes the commands to the recievers, and typically, this will get the system going. In some cases, resetting the RJ11 may be required.



This user has it pretty much right on. At his request, I helped him get all the steps in the right order. I have not read it in a while, but if memory serves, it will get you going, but not completely exhaustive.