Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

So I did a shoot a couple weeks ago in a old warehouse. One of my four AB800s started firing continuously as soon as I connected the phone looking cord to the light.

I could not get it to stop. I figured it was just a flakey ground in the old building.

So tonight I got all my lights out to test prior to a shoot this weekend. In my home - good ground.

Same light started the constant firing. Changed the CSR+ from another light. It stayed with the light not the trigger. Then a few minutes later another light started doing the same thing!!!!!

I am about to go crazy!

Please help. :(

A bad ground or line noise would be my guess for the warehouse. At home, do you have anything else sharing that circuit that may introduce line noise? Examples would be anything with a motor (A/C, freezer, etc.), flourescent lighting, reversed polarity of some electronic device. Also check your RJ11 jacks in the lights and remotes to see if the contacts may be touching. Have you tried same reciver with the same light with different cords? Are the slave eyes locked out?

David - I want to thank you and Joe for checking out my lights and triggers.

So I got home and here is what I did.

Quick test. Just set all four lights (in my bedroom) on top of my dresser. When I turned on the fourth light (trigger 1) it started flashing! When I would plug it in...as soon as it got power I would see the Xeon blub start a flash....then....flash....flash....flash.

So I turned off all Wi-Fi equipment in the bed room, overhead fan (I thought that was it for a second), flash...flash....flash....moved it to the bath room ....flash....flash...flash.

Brought in the Vagabond II - not plugged into the wall...................:) No flash.

Took it to my hall........................................:) No flash took it to my Kitchen..........................:) no flash.................................plugged it directly to the socket in my bed room...flash.....flash....

I then plugged it back into the VagII - ...................................:) no flash.

Then I changed to Freq 13 and plugged back in the wall..............................:) No flash.

I started testing....it also seems like the modeling light got brighter when it was on the different frequency and not being pulled down?

I did have a few missfires. Telling light 4 to flash and light 2 would also flash?

All four lights were touching so that could have been it. I will see when I set them up in the Studio.

I think I am on to something. The wall sockets on the south side of my bed room must have an issue?

Thanks again. I will let you know if I find anything else.

Gary