The death of my flash

Out on a job shooting today, I saw that the shutterspeed didn't change to 1/60th as usual when I turned on the flash, but the flash did fire. Suddenly, a megaflash came while I was shooting - thought I had a manual full effect set by accident? After that, the flash communicates with the camera, but won't charge. Had two sets of fully charged rechargeables but none worked. Are these rechargeables more risky to use than alkalines? ****, 580 EXII aren't particularly cheap either.:o

Send it in for repair.

Canonman47 wrote in post #15491501
Out on a job shooting today, I saw that the shutterspeed didn't change to 1/60th as usual when I turned on the flash, but the flash did fire. Suddenly, a megaflash came while I was shooting - thought I had a manual full effect set by accident? After that, the flash communicates with the camera, but won't charge. Had two sets of fully charged rechargeables but none worked. Are these rechargeables more risky to use than alkalines? ****, 580 EXII aren't particularly cheap either.:o

yes I killed 3 580exii's. Hope the 600ex-rt's are better :0

Repairing it is cheaper and if its really NFG they'll swap the entire circuitry included in the price.

Canonman47 wrote in post #15491501
Are these rechargeables more risky to use than alkalines?

Nope, not if you use reputable ones and there's no reason to use anything else.

It sounds, on those very scant symptoms, as if your flashtube has blown. Not as in "you've done something wrong and damaged it", more like it's just life-expired. They don't last forever.

Whortleberry wrote in post #15493080
Nope, not if you use reputable ones and there's no reason to use anything else.

It sounds, on those very scant symptoms, as if your flashtube has blown. Not as in "you've done something wrong and damaged it", more like it's just life-expired. They don't last forever.

I believe my flashtube have been blown, there was a massive eplosion of light just before it died, but all controlbuttons are working. Lifetime in this case was 3,5 yrs. Thxs for all the answers. I am on location now, but will head off imidiately to get a new one, but need to understand why it happened to avoid something similar.

Canonman47 wrote in post #15494751
I believe my flashtube have been blown, there was a massive eplosion of light just before it died, but all controlbuttons are working. Lifetime in this case was 3,5 yrs. Thxs for all the answers. I am on location now, but will head off imidiately to get a new one, but need to understand why it happened to avoid something similar.

Why it happened? I think that, like me, it was just suffering from old age and overwork. I doubt if it's avoidable or even if it's anything you actually did - other than use the unit. We do tend to think of these things as investments when actually they are semi-consumable. Just takes a wee bit longer to consume them than it did with flashbulbs.

Yep, it's the flash tube.
The same thing happened when my 550 let go.
You didn't do anything wrong. At some point they just cry "enough".

Canonman47 wrote in post #15494751
I believe my flashtube have been blown, there was a massive eplosion of light just before it died, but all controlbuttons are working. Lifetime in this case was 3,5 yrs. Thxs for all the answers. I am on location now, but will head off imidiately to get a new one, but need to understand why it happened to avoid something similar.

3.5 years, how often did you use the flash? daily ... weekly?

I'm in a monestary so miracles happen: Thought I should just test the gone flashunit one more time before sending it to the wastebin and then what happened: It worked! Had already bought a new 600EX-RT so today I tested a two flash setup using optical remote release. In the manual for the 600EX it says somewhere that in some circumstances when the flash stops working, one should leave it to rest for 30 minutes before using it again (some built in protection?). Maybe that's what I should have done! I am sure my flashtube overcharged when I took a picture because it came out almost white as very much overexposed, then it didn't fire anymore and no charging sounds either.

Whortleberry wrote in post #15493080
Nope, not if you use reputable ones and there's no reason to use anything else.

It sounds, on those very scant symptoms, as if your flashtube has blown. Not as in "you've done something wrong and damaged it", more like it's just life-expired. They don't last forever.

philwillmedia wrote in post #15495103
Yep, it's the flash tube.

"won't charge" and "and no charging sounds either"...something in the charging circuit, not a failed flash tube! If the flash tube failed, it would "charge, but won't fire"

Following this thread to learn about causes and share reflections. In reviews, Canonflashes are often thought to be overpriced, but good quality otherwise, but it's good to know that they build in some protection to keep them alive as long as possible. These two flashes has costed me a cool 900-1000€, got another EX430 somewhere too bought back in 2005 but still kicking.
Up here on the border between Finland and Russia it's a real artic climate (-28C) and the 1DmkIV really gets a chance to proove itself and it works well. Last year the portrait direction releasebutton stopped working due to extreme cold as well. I brought it back to Oslo and the CPS guys. They wondered how it happened and I told them the truth (after pondering a minute). The guy smiled and said that the camera was guaranteed between 45-0C so I had well exceeded those limits. I answered that in Scandinavia it gets colder than that during the whole winterseason mostly. So you either label the camera "Summeruse only" or withdraw it from the. He looked at me, another smile and said: We'll fix it under warranty and even calibrate your original canonlenses for you for free. I asked them also to give the camera a treatment I had vaguely heard of, so that it wouldn't happen again and I belive they did.
I have been documenting a class of iconpainters work here and thought I might give them a bit of competition so I showed them this picture (see attachment). They wanted it on the wall outside the painting room, so now I am thinking about how to blow it up to 210x140cm using Photoshop and Photozoom Pro v.4. Tried to save it as a psd-file, but it cancelled out at 2GB. Instead a tiff-file of 1.4 gb now rests on my computer with a resolution of about 240 ppi. I was thinking of using 300ppi, but does it make sense for such a big picture? Any advise is welcomed.

With a little more information now, obviously it was neither the tube as first thought nor the charging circuit. Are we to gather that this failure was in the slightly cooler (:rolleyes temperatures you mentioned subsequently?

I'm surprised that you ever manage to get anything out of either batteries or accumulator cells in those temperatures - way, way below what they are designed for. Likewise the camera(s); the Canon specified operating temperatures are 0°C to 40°C and any cold-soaking certainly used to require "winterising" which also included replacing the lubricants in shutter and aperture with something more suited to lower temperatures (ie something which didn't turn to gel or solidify completely).

So - no idea what happened with your flash. Thermal cut-out? Seems unlikely given the "megaflash". Flash tube deceased - obviously not. Charge circuit dead - again, it subsequently worked so not that either. I give up! Absolutely no ideas at all now.

To clearify a few points:

1) The flash collapsed in a classroom with a normal indoor temperature of approx. 21C.
2) I have used the camera and lens but no flash outside under the arctic conditions mentioned earlier. That was when a single button on the camerahouse stopped working.
3) I am/was aware of the limitiations of Canons warranty, but argued that were they to be followed strictly, the could risk a ban from consumer authorities on selling the camera without specifically mentioning the limitations to customers. Here in scandinavia artic temperatures are the norm during the winter and people expect a camera to work around the year. The Canon-rep. accepted this argument right away because he knew I was right.

I think it was just a mega surcharge that happened but why I can't tell. This activated a surcharge protection circuit that turned off everything and made sure it cooled down sufficiently.