Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

Hi,

I just got my cyber commander last Friday and I used it Saturday. Tonight I was setting up to practice some more and it will not power on. I put fresh batteries in it, but nothing happened. It rattles. Maybe something is loose? Is there anything I can try to do myself? I had planned on using it this Friday. Help!

This happens to mine on a regular basis. I am waiting for the new firmware. I hope the firmware resolves the issue. I take the batteries out, let it sit for 30 seconds and then take out the memory card. I replace the batteries and replace the memory card. Sometimes I have to take the memory out a few times. This happens every few days. After the battery and memory swap it "wakes" up and works.

Not sure this happens to others, but for me it gets the unit working.
jim

Jim,

Thank you so much! I'm not sure if I was having the same problem or not, because when I took the batteries out to try your suggested fix, one of them just fell out and I realized that it wasn't be held securely enough to make contact. That is the rattling I heard -- the battery. So I squeezed in the contacts ever so slightly and it worked. I'm back in the game! Whew. It's rough to get a new toy and not be able to play with it!

Having the same issue. I find shorting the contacts with something like scissors seemed to help get it back, but then again it might have been dumb luck timing. I started a similar thread before I saw your post.

Gulp

This gives me pause

I've heard from my cousin who runs a QC group for some firm's proprietary software dept. that 70% of software product cycle before release is testing.

I would feel so embarrassed if during the shoot my lighting system control had conked out and I had to take out batteries and so on. Why isn't PCB's Technical Support all over this thread, acknowledging & reaching out for details? It has to be SOLID. I have the following specific questions - PCB or Technical Support, please elaborate:


1. Do we have a concrete timeline for the release of the new firmware (vs. seed of the pants)?

2. Is there a list of specific bugs and issues that the new firmware is addressing?

3. Is there an issue tracking system where users can enter their issues and steps to reproduce?

Poisonberry wrote in another thread
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I was metering the lights just fine and setting the values I wanted. However, I hit the meter button again to check some new values and it appeared that all 3 units fired and the cyber commander went blank, as if completely dead. It did not respond to power button or anything.
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This happens to me regularly. I bought a smaller cyber sync for the camera. It sits in my camera's hot shoe and triggers the lights without any trouble. Until they release new firmware, I am using my cyber commander as little as possible to trigger the lights since half the time it goes blank when I trigger the lights with it. I have faith it will get resolved. I have one large softbox high above a product shooting table. Taking the batteries out to restart it is still easier than climbing up a step ladder to make adjustments.

Well, I used the CC for the first time on a shoot the weekend (other than practising at home).

The unit let me down big time with the same problem that others in this thread have had. After 20minutes or so the unit stopped responding and refused to turn on. I took the batteries out and then the card, waited for a bit and put it all back together. Only problem then is that the cybersyncs then get all screwy so that whatever channel I selected the same light would fire!

Only way to cure this was to take all the cybersync batteries out and put them back in again. This is less than ideal in the middle of a paid shoot, when one of them is up a boom - looks very unprofessional. This happened once during the setup and once during the shoot. In the end I had to go back to using the sliders on the lights.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not product knocking. When it was working it was an absolute revelation and so easy to get what you want from it.

Has anyone with this problem found a better solution, or can technical support/Luap comment on if this is a known issue and have a workaround?

Typically, removing the SD card will restart the CC. We are looking into the cause and a solution.

TS

I am going to keep the commander in my pocket and use a CST to trigger things and see if not being on the hotshoe helps. I am glad I am not alone in this and I KNOW Paul is kicking people to find a solution and am confident an answer will be found. Now, back to spending another hour trying to get my damn moon unit attached to the ringflash. :x

I too have had this problem but only when changing the batteries. I have to remove and re-insert the memory card a few times and the unit starts up again.