Strobes flashing continuously ...

Hi chaps I bought a pair of used 'Elemental' strobes ... first time use today. I have no experience with studio strobes but all seemd pretty straight forward. I'm firing them with a 5d mkii with a yongnou trigger in the flash show, another trigger is plugged into the sync socket on one of the strobes. All was working splendidly and I was feeling really please with the results until I moved one of the lighting stands and the strobe started firing continuously ie flash recharge flash recharge flash etc etc ... I powered everything down and it seemed to solve the problem for a few minutes, then the second strobe displayed the same problem. I unplugged all the wireles trigger and my speedlite onto the camera and fired them with that but the proble reoccured .... anyone any ideas please ?

Many thanks Roger

rogertb wrote in post #17372391
I unplugged all the wireles trigger and my speedlite onto the camera and fired them with that but the proble reoccured

so you're saying that the wireless trigger has nothing to do with it?

Does your strobe have optical trigger sensor? If so, you need to make sure that they are disengaged when using remotes.

Thanks both, yes LHB I don't think the wireless triggers are causing it, I'll try and find some time to do more tests today but it's very difficult to nail down ... and photopat there doesn't seem to be a way of disengaging the optical trigger. These are very basic (and cheap) strobes but when they are working they are perfect for the simple studio job I bought them for ... 'Elemental' in the UK don't sell them any more but I found this company in the US - as you can see ... pretty basic:

http://photographerssu​pplystation.com/thfn16​0.htm

Roger

wonder if one is faulty and the other is just firing when its optical slave tells it to. Put them in separate rooms, or only turn on one at a time, and see if the problem occurs with one and not the other.

sounds like it might be an internal fault that only manifests when the temperature rises.

Could be, or a loose connection, pain in the bottom ... not going to get my cash back and now can't sell them on ... live and learn.

It sounds like a problem previously seen many years ago, with multiple photographers using the same brand of radio triggers set to the same channel...interference between units could cause continuous triggering of photographer A's flash units due to photographer B being on the same channel.