A New Bare Bulb Flash Arrives

Seems odd that its happening to both units and not the other

Nick I hope you get your issues worked out. I have to say that I have not had any problems with any of my units that were not self induced.

abbadon31 wrote in post #16370790
Seems odd that its happening to both units and not the other

It's the magic Godox branded cable.
Seriously, that's the only cable that gives me reliable operation.
Again, Ed sent me new cables and they aren't reliable at all.
So I'm wondering what are the chances of all of this happening across 4 cables? That's what has me stumped.

So why didn't you simply get all magic Godox cables?

Are you suggesting Nick has a crystal ball and/or a ouija board?

PhotographersWorldWide wrote in post #16370950
So why didn't you simply get all magic Godox cables?

Because the cable that came with the lights are supposed to work...right?

I got 3 cables since I got 3 lights. One of them for whatever reason is Godox branded. That one works. I told Ed this. Further investigation is required. In the meantime I have my strobes to get the job done.

Anyways, let me not add to the crap pile that this thread has become. I have several convos going offline. Thank you to those who have given me some ideas.

I would get a volt meter out and test it

nicksan wrote in post #16370440
Aside from all the bickering, I want to add my 2 cents regarding the flashes. I have 1 x CL-180 and 2 x CL-360 flashes. I've had some issues with reliability, especially with the CL-180 unit. It was working fine initially but then I started to encounter strange behavior such as it turning off, then turning back on, then firing all on its own, apparently due to what I though was a bad cable. This started to happen as I was shooting a wedding. Not too good as you can imagine. Since I am still kind of in evaluation mode, I had my strobes with me so no harm no foul. But the problem is, that was like 5 weddings ago. I am still bring my strobes, just in case...

The only reason I feel it's the cable is because my one of my CL-360 unit started to go crazy on me as well. Same behavior, so I had to take that one offline too, again, during a wedding. So I was left with one CL-360 that was working.

So then I began the painful process of trying to spend time to figure out what piece is the offending piece. Obviously, chances of a CL-180 and CL-360 failing at the same time seem remote at best. So I then inspected the cables. I have 3 of course, one per flash. I noticed that one of them is labeled "Godox". That's the cable that works fine. The other 2 that are seemingly defective aren't labeled. Still, it seemed pretty remote that both cables would be defective.

So Ed sent me new cables. Guess what? Same thing. The CL-180 was acting crazy and I managed to get the CL-360 to turn itself off after a few wiggling of the cable but not to a point where I can make that happen each and every time. That's the most frustrating part. It's like dealing with a vehicle issue. When you bring it to the dealership you can never recreate the issue!!!

So I've sent Ed an email. I have faith in him. I want these flashes to work. I don't really care how much I paid for them. These are game changers in a sense that they reduce the gear I have to carry by a LOT.

Maybe I am one of the unlucky ones. At this point, I'm just tired of trying to figure out what's wrong.

I have the same with a original Godox labelled cable. My flash dropped when standing on a stand. The angled part of the cable and the side of the PB960 took the brunt of the fall.

First I thought I had resolved the problem when it worked when I tested it. The next time the AD360 stop working and the LCD was dark. Pushing the cable to the side did revive the AD360. After a few more of these stoppages I ordered a 5 metre cable and made a new new cable by cutting that cable in a 2 metre and 3 metre piece and fitted new DIN connectors.

Now all is working without any troubles and prefer the straight cable over a curled cable.

I thing the tubes inside the angled connector which goes over the pins in the connector of the flash loose connection or the linkage between the lead and the tube is broken. I have not yet cut the connector open to check it what exactly the problem is.

windpig wrote in post #16370974
Are you suggesting Nick has a crystal ball and/or a ouija board?

No - Simple question...

With two crap cables in your hand - why replace them with two more of the same? Obviously the Godox worked, both of the non-named didn't.

Was it THAT much of a taxing question for you?

PhotographersWorldWide wrote in post #16371129
No - Simple question...

With two crap cables in your hand - why replace them with two more of the same? Obviously the Godox worked, both of the non-named didn't.

Was it THAT much of a taxing question for you?

No, it wasn't a taxing question, in fact it was an inflammatory question, which, coming from you, isn't out of the norm.

All the cables come from Godox. Think about it a minute. Cheetah Light is rebranding and reselling Godox product. Where else would the cables come from.

It this is endemic then Edward will find a solution by working with Godox to improve the cable construction. That's what resellers do, and we know Edward takes this seriously.

Another thing to consider is that since all the cables we have collectively are manufactured by Godox if there were an endemic problem it is likely to have shown up more than just with Nick.

It sounds like Nick is undertaking good troubleshooting technique for a system with multiple components. i.e. change one component and see if problem persists. If it does put original back into system and change another component. etc.

In this system, LIght-cable-battery, the cable is probably the most likely element. Since there are cable connections in both the light and battery that would be my next point of suspicion.

windpig wrote in post #16371159
No, it wasn't a taxing question, in fact it was an inflammatory question, which, coming from you, isn't out of the norm.

Blah, blah.

Once they get the cable problem resolved they can begin working on an ETTL model; the one thing I wish the current model was capable of doing.

sigma pi wrote in post #16370196
And I would say you are not immune to it as well

But I'm staying away from the shouting.

What angle do the cables come out of the flash when in use?

How much cable weight is pulling on the connector?

There could be some quality issues inside the connector that will result in troubles just because the cable weight results in a slight deformation of the plug, in which case there either might be a disconnect or maybe a short between two poles. And manually testing might not put this torque on the connectors making it hard to spot the condition that makes the cable misbehave.

Of course any cable weight pulling on the cable plug is also pulling on the connector in the flash - or maybe the connector in the battery pack. And very small tolerances can affect how much twisting force that is taken by the plug and how much force is taken by the pins.

A multimeter that has a very quick-reacting connectivity (beep) test can help a lot when trying to spot a problem. The display is often too slow to react to a very short glitch.