can I use PWs and Cybersyncs together

I just started experimenting with interchanging speedlights with some of my monolights to use for background and hair lights. Currently I am triggering my 600EX (background light) using a cybersync receiver via the flash zebra hotshoe. I am using a 430EX (hair light) as optical slave.

Can I use my PW Mini TT1/Flex TT5 system to trigger my strobes and my 600EX by mounting the cybersync transmitter in the Mini TT1's hotshoe? I would probably still have to use the 430EX as optical slave because I only have one TT5. This way I could control the 600EX setting in-camera on my 5DM2. Right??

Seems kinda Rube Goldberg to me, but theoretically it should work as long as the 600EX is in manual mode.

Curtis N wrote in post #15488066
Seems kinda Rube Goldberg to me, but theoretically it should work as long as the 600EX is in manual mode.

Rube Goldberg? Now that I had to look up!

Anywho...the only reason I wanted to try this is so I don't have to manually adjust the settings on my master (background light) because it is mounted on a mini stand, and well, I'm not a spring chicken anymore.

Well if you already have the PW Flex and Mini then I guess it's worth a try.

Looking down the road, the Paul Buff lights and the Cybercommander offer a pretty affordable system for complete hotshoe-mounted control. But that would require some additional investment.

No dice. Using the PW TT1 does not allow the 5DM2's menu controls to change the flash settings of my 600ex mounted on the TT5. In fact I couldn't even change the settings when I mounted the 600ex on top of the TT1 which was mounted on top of the body. Seems like the menu controls only work when the 600ex is directly mounted to the body.

Can you use a pc cable to the trigger and then menu control the flash?

For the camera speedlite menus to control the 600EX-RT it has to be communicating with the camera via the Canon messaging system. That means either its attached to the hot shoe or its communicating to something attached to the hot shoe that knows how to talk Canon. That would be either another 600EX-RT or an ST-E3-RT.

ControlTL intercepts the Canon communication and converts it to PW speak. The device at the other end then translates it back to Canon speak for the flash unit.

You're attempting to control some lights with canon speak and others with PW speak. It doesn't work.

Either dumb everything down to accept just sync signal, or get everything to speak the same language, which would have to be PW controlTL in this instance.