Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

I'm shooting with 3 AB800, CSRB+, and Cyber Commander. When I have my lights powered by my vagabond I randomly have my dump light to stay on and the AB does not fire. To get it work I unplug and replug the telephone jack, press the test button on the CSRB. It may work for anywhere between 3 and 10 shots. I have to do this sequence all over again. It is totally random between lights. When I plug into a wall socket, the dump light problem goes away. It appears to be an issue with the Vagabond. The vagabond will be a year old this summer.

Any ideas?

When the dump light comes on, do the white bars on the Commander that correspond with those lights turn gray? Can you hit the "refresh" command (firmware version v.29) on the Cyber Commander and bring the lights back up?

I've seen this exact symptom w/ a B1600 when running off a vagabond and radiopoppers. It's some sort of tolerance issue w/ the opamps in the RJ11 interface and the vagabond's lower voltage. See if you can isolate it to a specific AB800 (only one of my B1600's had this issue).

You can also try the workaround on the powerup sequence that worked for me...set the power level to the bee to full and the modeling slider to full (no need to turn on the modeling lamp), plug in the CSRB+ but don't turn it on. Power up the bee when plugged into the vagabond. Then power up the CSRB+. Fire a bunch of shots and it should be stable.

If all your bees get into this dump mode (you can actually see the flash tube flicker when you test fire it), your vagabond probably needs replacing because it's putting out too low a voltage...

The white bars remain white. The refresh button has no effect.

Thanks for the workaround idea but no luck, I may get 5 shots before they die again.

I hope its not the vagabond, its less than a year old. It was always charging when not in use, until I saw the revised charging method last month.

just to be sure, your power slider is at full, and all three model lamp buttons are pushed in? turning the model lamp off should be done via CC.

I have narrowed this issue down to the Vagabond II. I watched the "red power" indicator switch. When I fire the flashes, as long as the indicator switch does not go completely dim, everything works fine. But if the indicator switch goes dim, when the AB recharges, I get the red dump light.

My question now is should the Vagabond II be able to handle recharging 3 AB800's and not interrupt the communication of the CSRB+ with the AB800? Is there a method I can check to see if the Vagabond is working properly? Should I replace the battery in the Vagabond?

Have you tried the same set up without the CSR+? Does the same thing happen if you use 2 lights or 1 light?

FWIW, it's able to handle two B1600's running radiopoppers...

When using 2 lights I have the same issue. Shooting 1 light the dump issues are not as freqent.

I tried with a vagabond, cyber sync cst and the CSRB+ without the telephone connected. I had no problems with firing lights.