Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

Thanks. Just as confusing as the manuals. Seriously, when you are too close to a project its better to have people not involved write these things or at least read them, though a simple change-log shouldnt be that hard.

Going with the way its posted the logic would go:
From Version 27 that would mean the items listed are what you get when you upgrade "from v.27". The same thing goes for the others. You wont get the other items, just what you upgraded "from".

Since I doubt this is what happens it should really say NEW in V.32, and list the items. Then under v.27 it would list the PREVIOUS items that had changed in THAT version.

Thats the way change-logs are listed all the time, why try and reinvent the wheel with a square?

If you read my post it does say, "Ive changed freq and swapped controllers more times then I can remember." It also says, "Ive plugged the lights into 3 different sources of electricity, same problems."

Ive posted my ongoing dilemma in this post with other people with similar problems.
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=687&p=7156#p7156

or you can just type 'cyber commander problems' in google.

Since updating to v.32 with the Cyber Commander, I've noticed something happening a lot more frequently than in the past (before the update).

In particular, I'm now experiencing CSR+ units becoming unresponsive 2-3 times per day when shooting multi-hour sessions. This happened on rare occasions before, but it's now happening fairly regularly. When this problem occurs, it looks like this:

1) One or more CSR+ units will suddenly no longer respond to setting changes or flash triggering, and any attempts at the CC to adjust or refresh them result in the "red box" outline showing for the channel. Triggering from a CST is also unsuccessful when the CSR+ is in this state. It's as if something has "confused" the CSR+, causing it to ignore any RF input. Pressing the test button of the CSR+ will still trigger the light, though.

2) Disconnecting power to the CSR+ for a few seconds (then reconnecting) seems to reset the unit appropriately, and from that point forward the unit will respond satisfactorily (at least until the issue comes up again). No changes seem to be needed at the CC to re-establish communications again when I've done this.

I've experienced this randomly with all four of my CSR+'s since the v.32 update. As mentioned earlier, I saw it on rare occasions before the update, but much more often now. When it happens, it will simultaneously affect anywhere from 1 to 3 units.

Interestingly, it seems to be related to moving between the channels on the CC. I'm almost certain that every time I've seen this, it's been when I have moved the "cursor" on the CC to a specific channel to adjust a single light.

In an effort to troubleshoot this issue, I've tried changing batteries on the CC as well as different frequency settings for all of the units. I think I've tried 3 different frequencies so far, but the issue has resurfaced with each one.

What other troubleshooting steps should I try with this?

Thanks!

I have brought this to the engineers' attention. Were you trying to adjust and fire very rapidly? Perhaps using a CST when doing so?

Definitely not firing rapidly. I'm shooting products on a table, camera on a tripod, tethered, using mirror lock-up. At best, there's at least 30-45 seconds between shots. I do usually pop the lights a couple times after adjustments, though. I give the bees at least 2-3 seconds between pops to recycle when I do that.

I'm going to be shooting some more this evening, and I'll experiment a bit with settings changes to see if I can come up with a more consistent way to cause it.

After I did the V.32 update I noticed that when I went into the "Light Settings" screen, the right hand joystick is intermittently, not responding, when pushed in the down position. I never noticed this before the update.

RMS

is this only in the light settings screen? does any thing at all happen in either direction?

The joystcik works in all other directions, UP-LEFT-RIGHT. When pushed down, it works sometimes but not all the time. At times it seems to be the amount of pressure applied on the joystick to make it work but other times it works with normal or light pressure as well.

RMS

My CyberCommander is brand new (v.32) with the CSR+ remotes. I find it is operating much like DavidM above where one unit, usually the same one, will freeze and quit working.

If I switch out of the Group # it remains on and should turn off as does the working one. In the Light Menu settings, the other good one will turn on and off the modeling light (Stand By to On), but the frozen one will remain on no matter what I do. I can get it to reset and work for a while by removing the batteries. Tracking no longer works either, although the little red bar will go up and down on the CC, the strobe will not if frozen. Other one works normally.

I've changed the channels just in case, but in 30 minutes or so it will again freeze to any settings from the CyberCommander. No tracking. No nothing. I'm not fast firing either as I'm in a slow detective mode trying to figure out why it is freezing up to any input from the Cyber Commmander. I believe the stuck remote's flash firing is from the slave sensor on that strobe unit picking up the other working flash's light.

I switched the questionable remote unit to another strobe and it will freeze there too after a while. Same as above.

Oddly, when it freezes, if I try and set the menu and the Strobe Name (e.g. White Lightening Ultra 1200) the next push of the Menu which should go to the wattage (or whatever other two screens follow are), it will not go there. Go into that menu (pushing "in" the right button) it is stuck on the defective remote. I can toggle into the other working remote and it still allows me to change settings as normal, but the frozen remote is stuck in the CC too.

Very odd why it freezes up. Mine always seems to revolve around the same remote sticking.

Mack

Add me to the list of people experiencing this problem.

Background:
I run 3 Alien Bees (2xB800 and 1xB400) with CSRB+ on each, a CST on the camera, and a v.32 CC in hand. I am a new user and just got everything in December. On 2 of my 3 most recent T&I shoots, I had a problem where one or more lights stopped responding to the CC/CST. The only solution was to pull the CSRB+ unit off the light, pull the batteries, turn off the lights, then follow the sequence for turning the units on and connecting the CSRB+'s.

The night everything worked was a follow-up to the first night where I had problems, but I was working in the exact same location so I had no reason to change any lighting settings -- I just set everything up exactly where it was the night before and the lights/triggers worked great all night.

My most recent shoot was in a new location. Initial set up went resulted in two lights (one main B800 and the hairlight B400) going unresponsive. I also found that the CC was metering .5 to 1 f/stop too bright which required me to meter the setup using my Sekonic meter (this was a new symptom). Final symptom was that one of my CSRB+'s causes a light to run the modeling light at low power and flicker. Despite going into the CC and saying turn the modeling light off for that B800, it remained on, low, and increased/decreased intensity in a random pattern. I just pushed the button on the B800 to turn the modeling light off so the athletes wouldn't keep pointing out the obvious to me (6 year old hockey players can be soooooo helpful). Moving the CSRB+ caused the modeling light problem to move to whatever light I put it on.

Tried calling tech support but had to leave a message. No one called back.

Love the system and potential. Want to help find the problem. What more information would you like?

-Mike Price
Fairfield Photography

EDITED: 1/27/11 @ 11:50 ET.
I replaced all of the Panasonic AA batteries that came with the CSRB+ units with brand new Duracell's. Can't get the lights/triggers to fail plus the modeling light problem has disappeared. I put all of the Panasonic's on the battery meter and the read out as OK. I will keep beating on this through the afternoon and update this if I can recreate the problem or find any other pattern(s). - M

Well, it's been a while since I posted that. After trying a variety of things, I think I've gotten a little closer to understanding what's happening. At least in my particular situation.

It has made no sense to me that I would start to have trouble like this, when nothing in my setup has changed (other than the firmware update, which didn't seem likely). So I decided to investigate potential causes that were external to anything in within my immediate control.

The condo that I live in at present is one of 12 units in a single building. We've had a fair amount of turnover lately in building tenants, so I thought there might be a possibility that there was more RFI in the local area from new wireless routers, cordless phones, and the like. I obtained a free utility that lets you see the various wireless networks and their relative strength via a graph (the utility is inSSIDer if anyone's curious). I was shocked to see how many networks showed up, and that at least one sometimes had a stronger signal than my own, even when I was in the same room with mine.

A little background might be helpful for understanding this next part: apparently the majority of 2.4GHz wifi routers these days come pre-configured to "channels" 1, 6, or 11 (at least in the US). Note that the use of the term "channel" for wifi routers implies a frequency assignment, and is distinctly different than that word's use for Cyber Commander/CSR devices. In my case, the majority of my neighbors are using channel 6. I was actually set to channel 8, which I had chosen at random several years ago when I first got the device. Something that I never knew until recently, is that selecting a single channel for wifi routers actually just chooses the center frequency; the protocol apparently uses a range of frequencies centered on that one for actual communications. For routers set to "channel 6", this range is 2.426 - 2.448 GHz. Note that the CC/CSR+ frequencies range from 2.427 - 2.457 GHz. That little bit of headroom at the top of the CC range was nicely covered by the "channel 8" range (2.436 - 2.458 GHz).

At my location, there were no less than 4 routers assigned to channel 6 that my computer saw, and anywhere from 3-4 others at other channels at various times when I checked. Perhaps importantly, the strongest two signals at my location were a neighbor's at channel 6 and mine at channel 8. Those two "channels" completely cover the range of CC/CSR frequency settings.

At the very least, the 2.4GHz spectrum at my location is flooded with wifi traffic. I have no way to check for other devices (cordless phones, etc.). So there's no telling how much more is actually going on here. Perhaps the "noise" from all these devices is causing CC messages to get partially garbled in transit? Will a partially-clobbered CC message lock up a CSR+?

Sorry for the length of this, I'll now get to what I did that seemed to make a significant difference in things. I set my CC/CSRs to freq 12 (2.449GHz), which is the closest thing I could get to a low traffic area for the wifi routers in my area. I then changed my wifi router to channel 1 (2.401 - 2.423 GHz), so that it's range would be distinct from my high-powered neighbor as well as my CC.

After doing this, I spent about 30 hours over the course of several days shooting work in my usual fashion. In this time, I had only 1 instance of 1 CSR (out of four in use) getting locked up. Prior to these changes, I would estimate that I would have seen at least 10-15 based on more recent experiences.

I certainly can't say conclusively that local wifi routers jamming the airwaves have been the cause of the recent problems I've seen. But I do know that my issues got significantly better immediately after I switched my router and CC to non-overlapping frequencies. Note that I used these devices successfully for many months before this problem ever showed up, even with my router set to channel 8. For most of that time, though, my CC system was set to freq 5, which is just below the lower limit of wifi channel 8's range. I can only conclude that it has been the combination of my router with all of the other ones in the building that seems to have "broken the camel's back". Perhaps the powerful one set to channel 6 is a recent addition; I have no way to know who it belongs to or when it first showed up in my building.

Hopefully, this will be a workable situation for me moving forward. At least if the problem comes up again, I know where I'll start investigating! And when I'm a bit more caught up on work, I'll set things back to the old settings to see if the problems come back with them. I'm too busy with shooting workload to do that right now.

These experiences are my own... your mileage may vary. ;)