Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

I have a CyberSync™ Trigger Transmitter and CyberSync™ Receiver (AC). For months I have been having an issue of the below:

I will have 3 AB800s set up and 1 AB1600 I will connect the Receiver to the 1600 and when i trigger it only the 1600 goes off. I will switch out and move the receiver to a 800 then all the 800's will go off but the 1600 will not. I have tired this at different distances but still same issue. and have tried this on all the alien bee's but it seems very consistent with the 1600 not going off or the reverse of the 1600 going off but the 800's not going off.

Can anyone help me understand this or help with a fix as I like to use the 1600 along with my 800's?

Thank you in advance.

From what I read, in every circumstance, the light that has the reciever will trigger, right? It is only one or more slaved lights that may not fire.

If this assesment is correct:

The slave triggering relys on two things; 1) The white dot marked "slave" on the back panel can see the flash (directly or indirectly) from the master flash unit (the one with the reciever), and 2) The slaved light does not have a plug inserted into the jack marked "sync" on the back panel, as this will disengage the slave eye.

If a master light is of a low enough intensity, and/or the slave eye is blocked by a large softbox, and/or the master is very directional from use of a grid or snoot, and/or the walls of the studio are distant, non-existent, or dark in color. These will restrict the amount of light that is bounced off the walls and back to the slave eye.

To improve your odds, be sure to place the reciver on the light that has the broadest spread, or one that has a decently broad spread and is set to a reasonably high power. If one light is particularly troublesome, some people have used foam core or something similar to provide a surface for flash to bounce off of.

Also, multiple recievers will help ensure all lights fire.

I have this same problem!!! Can I plug the sync cord into my camera on 1 strobe and have a receiver on the other two on the same frequency??? I was so mad shooting last night.

You can have a light plugged into the camera via PC cord, and use a transmitter in the hotshoe to trigger any number of receivers connected to the lights.

Only adding receivers would not help, you would need a transmitter.