430EX II problems

i was using this flash a few times and suddenly it powered off and wouldn't power on (even if the power switch was put to off then back to on) i replaced the batteries with fresh ones and still nothing but when i took the batteries out they were screaming hot but nothing is working and thoughts on what it may be?

thanks for any help in advance!

From the manual -

To avoid overheating and degrading the flash
head, do not fire more than 20 continuous
flashes. After 20 continuous flashes, allow a rest
time of at least 10 min.

If you fire more than 20 continuous flashes and
then fire more flashes in short intervals, the
inner overheating prevention function may be
activated to make the recycling time about 8 to
20 sec. If this occurs, allow a rest time of about
15 min. and the flash will then return to normal.

i didn't flash it more then 20 times continuous i used it maybe 7 or 8 times then it stopped and here i am almost a day later and still not working! the lcd doesn't power on the pilot light doesn't light it just does nothing but heat the batteries up really bad in the course of 30 seconds or so

so no one has any idea what this might be? googling has turned up not much.

Were you using lithium batteries? Lithiums have a tendency to overheat flashes. If it still does not power on a day later, there is a definite problem with the flash. It sounds like a trip to repair.

i was using powerex rechargeable and i was guessing that same thing but wasn't hoping there might be some one with an easy fix.

oh well it will pan out in the wash!

I prepared this weeks ago, but have finally taken some pics. It's about the 430EXII / 430EX II hot shoe / hotshoe foot.

I bought a used 430EX II from Australia using eBay. It seemed to work fine, but in use it kept resetting and losing contact with the camera. The flash could rock on the camera shoe even although the locking ring was as far around as it would go. It would not move enough to lock in place. This produced an erratic connection.
There was a major problem with the foot, and with the unit now in another country, warranty was gone. Canon New Zealand said that they would not provide Speedlite spare parts because of danger to users. (There is no access to the high-voltage circuits when the foot is removed!)

So I first ordered a replacement foot from uscamera.com
http://www.uscamera.co​m/cy2-4262.htm
and then tried repair.

The foot was much more complex than I expected. It has four sets of sliding parts in it, and these have a special lubricant on them. With mine, the lubricant had turned to a hard white grout, and the plastic sliding surfaces had etched. The whole foot was a single solid block! (I suspect that the Speedlite had been left unused in a vehicle in Perth’s very high temperatures, and the lubricant had vulcanised.)

This prevented the Speedlite from being clamped to the camera shoe. This clamping provides a firm Earth connection. Any tilting caused a loss of contact – looking at the LCD, using portrait mode, using OCF flash pointing down, etc.

The foot was slowly disassembled, with some expected breakage – an activator hook on the locking pin, and two no-rotation mouldings on the base pressure pads. And somehow I lost a small spring and one of the four pressure pads. Was I glad that a replacement was on the way! However, I cleaned and burnished all the sliding surfaces and re-assembled as best I could. The locking pin was omitted because if I was unable to withdraw it in use, it would mean a trip to Canon to remove the flash from the camera.

The flash worked fine when re-assembled - no more erratic contact. The replacement part eventually arrived and was swapped.

The foot is similar to that on the 580EX II but without the PC-sync socket. There is a great article on the 580EXII foot
https://shimworld.word​press.com …ite-580ex-ii-hotshoe-fix/
but it stops short of the final and most critical level:

Photo of 4th level parts

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dedsen wrote in post #13055394
Were you using lithium batteries? Lithiums have a tendency to overheat flashes. If it still does not power on a day later, there is a definite problem with the flash. It sounds like a trip to repair.

Lithium batteries do not overheat flashes. When lithium batteries become too hot, the batteries themseve's, will shut down until sufficiently cooled off. Once they cool down, they will work normally again.

Kiron Kid

Kiron Kid wrote in post #13058377
Lithium batteries do not overheat flashes. When lithium batteries become too hot, the batteries themseve's, will shut down until sufficiently cooled off. Once they cool down, they will work normally again.

Kiron Kid

There are lots of threads on here that disagree with you.

Batteries getting smoking hot, no power to unit. Had that happen to a vivitar at a wedding... The hot and ground wires coming from battery compartment had melted together, causing the batteries to short.

I was going to say to test the batteries to see if that can give you any ideas but newbie kind of already said something on the same lines. I'd look at the batteries and then consider whether the batteries may have damaged the unit itself.

It was blown fuses