Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

I've had my AB800 for approx 2 months and other than setting it up over my still life table it hasn't moved much. Yesterday I moved it around the house several times to different locations to take some portraits. Each and every time I moved it I turned it off, unplugged it and then moved it across the room or into the next room. I was not rough in anyway when I moved it but when I turned it back on the modeling lamp would not come back on. To get it to work again I had to unscrew it and then screw the lamp back in, but not too far or it would turn off again. I was not turning it any harder than you would normally screwing in a light bulb. I tried a different bulb, same result. Needless to say I'm a bit frustrated and not sure how to resolve this since it's just a standard bulb socket, how could that be broken?

Thanks

with the light off and unplugged, remove the model lamp and look inside the socket. At the back of the socket, ther should be a brass tab. Pull forward on this tab, reinstall the bulb and try again. Also make sure the white button in the back of the light is pushed in.

Until you mentioned that I had forgotten that I had already done that when I first received the unit. I was reluctant to do it again and the part the confuses me is that there seems to be a sweet spot whereby if I screw the bulb in too far it stops working. It's almost as though the bulb can only be loosely screwed in about half way. I have confirmed the button is pushed in.

Another thing to mention is that one of the times when I was able to get the modeling lamp to work I left it on and when I put my softbox back on it slightly bumped the flash head and the bulb turned off again.

Thanks

Have you tried a different lamp? It's not impossible the bulb itself might be suspect.

We are an all CF household so after getting a strange look from my neighbor when I asked if I could borrow a light bulb, I was able to test with a standard incandescent and incandescent flood. The standard incandescent did the same thing, when I screwed in more than half way and still loose it worked, anything more than half way it turned off. I switched to the incandescent flood and it worked fine no matter how loose or snug it was screwed in. I'll try and find a straight bulb like came with the AB and see if that works reliably.

Thank you

You definitely have a bad socket on the Bee. Covered by warranty and, yes, I understand the frustration. I have sockets like this in my house and go through the same exercise. We rarely see this sort of problem in spite of over a half million lights in the field.