Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

Now I'm having trouble with the speed light working and regenerating when attached to the Alien Bee. It works just fine when I attach it to the hotshot on the camera, but when I remove it from the camera, place it on a stand, and attach it by the cord to the back of the Alien Bee, it does not flash. What could be the reason for this? I might mention that I did replace the batteries in the speed light, but that made no difference.

Rather than putting the cord into the Alien Bee, plug it into the 3.5mm jack on the receiver. Be sure to place a different plug into the sync jack of the light to lock out the slave eye.

Also, be sure your auto sleep timer is extended or turned off. If the light goes to sleep, and it will do so quickly by default, it will not awaken remotely. I am not sure if this requires power cycling, or just the test button (this varies from model to model).

Be sure the speedlite is in Manual mode, and the slave/master mode is turned off (if it cannot be disabled entirely, then set to Master).