Pocketwizard AC57

I received the Pocketwizard AC57 in the mail today. I never even heard of the model number until I received it. Essentially, it's an extender for the external power source jack on a 580exii flash so that it can clear the AC7.

That allows you to plug a battery pack in to your 580exii even if you are using the AC7 Hard Shield...

Small little piece, but in hindsight, I may not use it. All of the recent threads/comments about the 580exii overheating when pushed too hard, have me reluctant to send it more juice.

But, if you are interested, this piece does exist now..

wdwpsu wrote in post #11930405
I received the Pocketwizard AC57 in the mail today. I never even heard of the model number until I received it. Essentially, it's an extender for the external power source jack on a 580exii flash so that it can clear the AC7.

That allows you to plug a battery pack in to your 580exii even if you are using the AC7 Hard Shield...

Small little piece, but in hindsight, I may not use it. All of the recent threads/comments about the 580exii overheating when pushed too hard, have me reluctant to send it more juice.

But, if you are interested, this piece does exist now..

Thanks for the heads up. Incredible that PW has the absolute chutzpah to charge $16 for a little piece of plastic that's required to allow their poorly designed, $35 AC7 to work as advertised.

May I ask where your AC57 came from?

Dave F.

tetrode wrote in post #11931052
Thanks for the heads up. Incredible that PW has the absolute chutzpah to charge $16 for a little piece of plastic that's required to allow their poorly designed, $35 AC7 to work as advertised.

May I ask where your AC57 came from?

Dave F.

From LPA directly. I think I avoided the $16 fee by freaking out after spending near $1000 in Pocket Wizard gear (3xTT5, 1xTT1, AC3, 3xAC7) only to find out that I couldn't use the battery pack. And, even with that, I only got one..

Surprise, surprise.... A poorly designed PW product? No way! Clearly this is Canon faults due to the design flaw of the 580ex II. I'll wait for the report.

williejr wrote in post #11932978
Surprise, surprise.... A poorly designed PW product? No way! Clearly this is Canon faults due to the design flaw of the 580ex II. I'll wait for the report.

Didn't say the AC57 is poorly designed. But, I look at it as a patch to a patch (ac7)..

wdwpsu wrote in post #11933012
Didn't say the AC57 is poorly designed. But, I look at it as a patch to a patch (ac7)..

I think Willie was just joking about what's currently going on with LPA and their preliminary investigation with the PW/580exII failures and the poor design of the AC7. This is really something that should be given out for free. I hope other customers can also benefit from their generosity.

It appears that LPA is willing to do the right thing and provide AC57s to AC7 owners who request them. After reading the OP's post regarding AC57 availability, I found them listed on Amazon being sold by E.P. Levine for $15.99 each. I thought it outrageous that PW would expect AC7 owners to cough up that amount of money to "enable" an advertised feature of the AC7 RF shield. I emailed LPA yesterday indicating my displeasure.

I was pleased to receive the following response this morning:

"I'm Zack. I work with Patrick here at LPA. As far as I'm aware, we haven't charged for any AC57s. Can you tell me where you heard about this $16? I'd be happy to ship you an AC57 for each AC7 Shield you have. Just let me know how many you've got and where you'd like the adapters sent."

Zack added the following explanation:

"The AC7 Shield was designed to accommodate an adapter (the AC57) that reverses the direction of the power cable as it connects to the flash. As it's normally connected, the cable leaves the flash from the front, which would require a significant geometry change to the AC7, compromising its ability to effectively shield the FlexTT5's antenna. We've found that a significant amount of RF-noise radiates from the power cable itself, so it's important to make sure it's dressed away from the radio's antenna."

This seems to be saying that the AC7 shield was deliberately designed in such a way that a standard battery pack plug could not be used for sound, RF engineering reasons. While I'm willing to accept that statement at face value, it seems to me the AC7 packaging which has printed on it: "battery pack plug access to port on flash" is misleading and deceptive and should be amended to include "through use of an adapter". I would hope that LPA decides to include the AC57 adapter in the box with the AC7 just as they now include the AC5 "sock" in the box with the FlexTT5.

Dave F.

wdwpsu wrote in post #11933012
Didn't say the AC57 is poorly designed. But, I look at it as a patch to a patch (ac7)..

You are correct. I was refering to the AC7 not being able to accomodate the battery cord. That was the first thing I noticed when one of my beta test friends showed it to me a long time ago. Even when he reported it back to PW, they still did not listen...

Nevertheless, it was nothing that my dremel tool could not fix.

klr.b wrote in post #11933139
I think Willie was just joking about what's currently going on with LPA and their preliminary investigation with the PW/580exII failures and the poor design of the AC7. This is really something that should be given out for free. I hope other customers can also benefit from their generosity.

I can't get anything past you.

Time to give PW/LPA a virtual pat on the back: I received confirmation that two AC57 adapters were shipped to me today at no charge.

Dave F.

Okay, so does anyone have contact information for LPA? I have no idea who LPA is or how to contact them. I need 4 of these adapters.
Thanks,
Bob

bobrock111565 wrote in post #11947505
Okay, so does anyone have contact information for LPA? I have no idea who LPA is or how to contact them. I need 4 of these adapters.
Thanks,
Bob

Customer.support@pocke​twizard.com

Dave F.

Thanks. I've sent them a scathing email about how poorly they've handled this situation. Hopefully they will send me some free adapters.
Bob

I received two AC57s from the PocketWizard folks today. To their credit, they got them to me *very* quickly. The AC57 adapter is quite small and robust. One end plugs into the 580EX II's power port while the other end presents a Canon-like receptacle accessible from outside of the PocketWizard AC7 RF shield.

Here's the AC57 plugged into a 580EX II:

tetrode wrote in post #11951082
I received two AC57s from the PocketWizard folks today. To their credit, they got them to me *very* quickly. The AC57 adapter is quite small and robust. One end plugs into the 580EX II's power port while the other end presents a Canon-like receptacle accessible from outside of the PocketWizard AC7 RF shield.

<snip>

And a view of the 580EX II in a PW AC7 RF shield:

Zack at PW cautioned that the power cord from the external battery pack should be plugged into the AC57 adapter before the adapter is plugged into the 580EX II to avoid unnecessarily stressing the power port on the flash. That's very good advice as the fit at both ends of the adapter is quite tight (a good thing). I think I'll just leave an AC57 attached to the power lead of my two Pixel external battery packs.

Nice fix by PW.

Dave F.

Dave, is that picture with your adapted cable? I think I remember you flipping the plug, or was that someone else? If that's a stock cable, it seems like the adapter was made the wrong way. Wouldn't it be better if the battery pack cable went down, towards the hotshoe?