Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

Hi. Hope this isn't a forbidden topic ;)

The new Cyber Commander firmware 32 thread had a warning...

Since there's an Einstein feature request thread, I assume that a Cyber Commander feature thread is fair game...

Suggestion 1 - How much of a firmware mod would it take to have one button of the Cyber Commander send a trigger on one frequency for firing a camera with a CSRB connected to the camera, and the other button send a trigger on a different frequency to set up and meter all the lights on CSR+ receivers?

Right now, I occasionally hook a classic Yongnuo RF-602 receiver and a CST transmitter to my camera, which lets me fire the camera with the RF-602 transmitter and have the CST fire my strobes. That's a little awkward, because I'm often puttering with the lights with the Cyber Commander, and that means I've got to carry two transmitters, the RF-602 and the Cyber Commander. And there's two boxes on the camera, a CST and an RF-602 receiver. At least the RF-602 can sit in the camera's hot shoe and provides a show of its own to put the CST in. (The CST still has to connect to the camera's PC jack).

I know, I can replace the RF-602 with a CST and CSRB+ set to a different channel than the CST on the camera, CSR+ on the lights, and Cyber Commander. It's even more awkward, because the CST is less comfortable as a remote trigger than the RF-602 (sorry, Paul, it just is) and the CSRB+ ends up hanging from the camera or getting Velcroed somewhere.

I tried getting clever, could a Cyber Commander both fire the lights for metering and fire the camera? So, I put everything on the same frequency (7, not that it matters), connected a CSRB+ on channel 16 to the camera's shutter jack, put a CST in the hotshoe, and I'm almost there. I can meter lights on channels 1-8, go over to channel 16 and fire the camera, then the CST on the camera fires the lights, and retriggers the CSRB+ on the camera, which makes the camera fire again, triggering the CST again, and starting a viscous circle.

If I put the camera CSRB on a different frequency, I'd have to menu through on the Cyber Commander to change frequencies in order to go from metering and setting lights to taking pictures. This is actually less awkward than having to put down the Cyber Commander and locate the RF-602 transmitter.

Suggestion 2 - Could a CSRB or CSRB+ get a firmware update to prevent the "round robin" retriggering? Limit how fast it would accept triggers, so you've got a half second or full second of "grace".

I know, there's people who really want their CSRB or CSRB+ to be able to fire the lights at 10 frames/second. So, add it the way we turn on repeater mode now, if someone holds down the test button for a certain length of time, it goes into a mode where you get "grace" instead of 10 frames/sec.

Suggestion 3 - Could a CSRB+ get an update similar to "relay mode" on the Pocket Wizard Plus II? They're already transceivers, they can do "repeater mode". They'd probably need an extra jack, so you'd have a flash jack and a shutter jack, like a PW Plus II. The microcontroller probably already has extra I/O lines, so it's just a matter of a 29 cent jack. Call it CSRB++. ;)

If there's something plugged into the shutter jack and the flash jack, the CSRB++ goes into relay mode, after it receives a fire command, it trips the camera shutter, then switches to transmit and waits some reasonable time for the camera to trip the flash input, at which point, it trips the flashes.

The transmitter module can only trasmit on one frequency at a time. The frequency will need to be changed somehow at some point. One button is for metering, the other is for testing/dumping, so reassigning them would be eliminating a key function.

Also, to be honest, camera triggering has never been part of the design philosophy of CyberSync or Paul C. Buff, Inc. With that, I would not expect changes to be implemented for the expressed purpose of camera triggering.

You can look here as a thread was already started:
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=749

photopat, thanks. I just added 5 suggestions to that other thread.

Technical Support, I'd think that a near zero cost modification that could help the Cyber Sync system outfeature Pocket Wizards or Radio Poppers would be quite useful.

I can see that what I suggest for the Cyber Commander would be a little tricky. How quickly can your transceiver change to a different frequency?

To do this would require the following, at minimum. There would have to be retooling for the housing. This may be as simple as just punching a hole in the housing, but that still is not cheap. Then, the circuit boards have to be redrafted to apply the 29 cent jack. Maybe it could go anywhere, but more likely more than one component would have to be moved, if there is room at all (if not, a whole new housing would need to be made). Then there may be extra I/O lines, maybe not (I really do not know). If not, then a new controller would need to be sourced and tested. If there are, then it needs to be reprogrammed to tell the controller what it needs to do. Then how does the camera tell the receiver when to fire, or how do you tell the receiver how long to wait (each camera can introduce its own delay)?

Pocket Wizard's niche is to make triggering devices, and make them well, and make them trigger anything they can.

Paul C. Buff, Inc.'s niche is to make the best lighting possible, and make it as affordable and available to the masses as possible. We make and/or offer lights, light modifiers, light triggers, and other lighting accessories. We simply do not have the resources, need to desire to go into other areas.