Stobes and my 10D = A NIGHTMARE, HELP!!!

so i am at the point of exhausted frustration. i set up all my strobes today to test everything out everything works all good execpt with my camera. when i went to go get my pc cord they told me to buy this little circuit breaker thingie so that no electricity arc back into my camera blowing the motherboard. i say "yes, give me one, i'm too broke to replace my camera!" the circuit breaker mounts to the hot shoe and then you plug the pc cord into that, now when i hit the test button on the breaker everything fires so there is not setup problem up to there. now when i hit the shutter nothing goes off. what have i done wrong???? the only thing i could find of any help was in the manual for my 10D and it said that "Do not use a high voltage flash on the hot shoe. It may not fire." <---now does that pertain to this situation and i'm completely screwed until i can affored the wireless slave kit or did i just go dumb and not set something right on the camera. Please help i don't know what i did wrong, and i might throw my camera out the window here soon!!!

Which safe connector did you buy? If you bought a Wein Safe Sync you should not have a problem. It is possible that the polarity of the plug is reversed.

it is a wein. and when i have it all set up and the sync is on the hot shoe the shutter does nothing but if i hit the little test button on the sync itself it fires, so there shouldn't be a polarity problem, it's the matter of getting the signal from the sync to the camera. and i'm just dumbfounded right now. its probably something really little that i completely overlooked, but as of this moment i have no clue as to what is going wrong.

by the way sorry about the double post guys, first time here.)

Sounds like the hot shoe and safe sync are not connecting. If you can try connecting the safe sync via the pc outlet and see if it works.

Can you put the safe sync on the hotshoe backwards?

ok well i'll try reversing the safe sync, and just in case how would you go about attaching the safe sync directly to the pc in on the camera?? i'm just really afraid of experementing too much cause i don't want to blow up my camera well i'll give the reversal a try and see what happens and update later, otherwise if anyone else has any bright ideas feel free to share. just in case, the camera doesn't need to be set up any special way for this right???

BRiLLIAnt!!! reversing worked, told you it was something stupid that i just didn't do.
new problem: no i'm getting everything to fire but in my image i'm only getting the top 1/4 if even to come out everything else is black, its not a harsh line that's cutting it off its really fuzzy?? i don't know i'll upload the picture later if i cant get it to stop i just currently "missplaced" my usb cord.... yeah that's me but i have no clue what this new problem is...any suggestions here's my piss poor diagram of it.....

* = picture
= blackness


[---------------]
[***************]
[***************]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[---------------]

Are you using some fast shutter speed, faster than flash sync speed?

---Bob Gross---

quite possibly....i'll have to look into that....where would be the best place to find that information....so can you guys tell yet...i'm new to this well thank you all for your help....and don't worry i will never run out of problems

I think the max sync speed for the 10D is 1/200. Setyour shutter (in M mode) to 1/160 and try that.

In the manual at the top of page 180.

---Bob Gross---

yup again i asked questions before i did the logical....after i posted i realized "hey, maybe the manual has it" and it did.....duh well i think i'm all set on this problem now...thanx for all your help guys....i'm sure there will be more to come from me in the near future. talk to ya'll soon!