430 EX II Issues?

I was practicing with my homemade beauty dish last night and started having issues with my 430 EX II. I'd take 2-3 pictures and then it would stop working. I thought maybe using it at full power it just wasn't recycling fast enough so I switched it to a lower setting. That also didn't work.

I thought maybe it was the batteries. I switched those out and it worked for 2-3 shots again, and then stopped working. Meanwhile I put the batteries I'd taken out of the 430 EX II and put them in my YN-560 and shot off 15 or so shots without a single misfire just to see if the batteries were the issue and clearly they weren't.

Then I thought I'd try the 430 out on my camera and take some on-camera flash shots and it worked perfectly! I a little bit slower then the 560s, but not too bad.

Could the problem have been with the triggers (Cowboy Studio NPT-04s)? I used the same receiver on the YN-560 when I was testing that and it worked just fine but now I'm wondering if there's an issue with those receivers and the 430. Or was my flash just being a jerk for me last night?

Did you use the radio triggers from the beginning, or did you try working with wireless ETTL first? I'm asking because you mentioned that you only switched over to manual later, after the problems began.

The triggers you have - they are the same as Cactus V2s, right? If so, you need to use the flash in manual mode always. But I guess you know that and it's only your problem description which makes it sounds a bit strange.

The problem you had sounds like an issue with your radio triggers, not with the flash.

Yeah sounds like your triggers are going south to me. If your flash is working perfectly on your camera and not correctly off, than it must be the triggers.

frasener has the right idea. Why would your 430 be on anything other than manual with those triggers. They do not support eTTL and you would not want the flash set to slave either. I would not rule out the triggers since Cowboy stuff does not have a very good record, but at this point you need to be sure your flash is set up right.

I'm sorry, I wrote the wrong thing! I had it on manual the whole time, just at full power. I lowered my settings thinking it was just taking too long to recycle. The problem seemed to be with how long the flash was taking to recycle. I could hear the little whine it makes after you take a picture and it just kept making that noise.

Now would it be the triggers or the 430s connection with them? Because when I put the YN-560 on the same receiver I took 15+ pics without a single misfire and a 3 second recycling time. Which is why I was questioning whether it was the triggers or the flash, or the combo of them working together. I bought the Cowboy triggers because they shipped from where I lived (got them the day after I ordered them on eBay) and I needed some triggers quickly. I am ordering the Cactus V5s soon so if it is the triggers there's really no broken hearts over it. But I really don't think that's the issue since they work just fine with my other flashes. Honestly I'd prefer the problem be the triggers because those are $25 while my flash is a $300 flash!

Also the 430 wasn't set to slave mode. I tried firing off the 430 with my 580 as a master while the 430 was in slave mode, but the beauty dish I was using I think was covering the sensor or something because it wouldn't fire at all as a slave.

Place the 430EXII on your 5DII or 40D (with flash control menus FCM).
Call up the menu's first page. Press the Info button.
Set Flash mode to Manual. Set Output to 1:1.
Prepare to time the recharge time. Press shutter.
If it takes more than 3.5 to 5 seconds, replace your batteries with new/fresh/fully-charged ones.

PeaceFire wrote in post #12364915
I was practicing with my homemade beauty dish last night and started having issues with my 430 EX II. I'd take 2-3 pictures and then it would stop working. I thought maybe using it at full power it just wasn't recycling fast enough so I switched it to a lower setting. That also didn't work.

I thought maybe it was the batteries. I switched those out and it worked for 2-3 shots again, and then stopped working. Meanwhile I put the batteries I'd taken out of the 430 EX II and put them in my YN-560 and shot off 15 or so shots without a single misfire just to see if the batteries were the issue and clearly they weren't.

Then I thought I'd try the 430 out on my camera and take some on-camera flash shots and it worked perfectly! I a little bit slower then the 560s, but not too bad.

Could the problem have been with the triggers (Cowboy Studio NPT-04s)? I used the same receiver on the YN-560 when I was testing that and it worked just fine but now I'm wondering if there's an issue with those receivers and the 430. Or was my flash just being a jerk for me last night?

what kind of time frame are you snapping those 2-3 pics in? back-to-back? or snap...wait/recompose.​..snap #2...wait/recompose..e​tc....

any chance you've got the auto-off option enabled on the flash? If enabled, I think it'll power off after 60 secs of not being used. When it's on-camera, the camera will wake up the flash as soon as you do a half-press of the shutter...but if wireless, they won't wake up. That could explain why it'll work fine on your camera...but not off-camera after several shots. It's happened to me several times when I forget to disable that option before putting it on my wireless trigger.