Ebay radio trigger problems

joey-cakes · May 7, 2008

so I purchased the PT-04 on ebay. after waiting for it to come from china i threw it on my camera and lucky me its not working to great. When I press the shutter release on the camera or the test button on the transmitter the red light flashes on both the transmitter and receiver. the flash does not fire.
I am using the equipment in my signature.

eravedesigns · May 7, 2008

I have read about the problem somewhere too but they said to take the transmitter off the camera and hit the test button and if it still doesn't work you know its not your camera thats broken.

I just ordered myself some of these and I haven't gotten them but I hope they work.

JimmyO · May 7, 2008

Ive had mainly good work. There kinda hit and miss though. One flash only works with a certain reciever, its wierd. Anyways im gonna start saving up for SkyPorts.

joey-cakes · May 7, 2008

ok so its not the camera. im gonna bring it to school tommorow and try it on the big studio stuff my teacher has there then ill know for sure if its my flash. what sucks is i was gonna take pictures for prom cause the photographer at prom has to take a million of them so they dont have time for attention to detail and often have crappy results.

DeadEye · May 7, 2008

Try a differant flash any diferent flash . On some receivers the contact close time is so very short " picoseconds " the flash did not know it was asked to fire. I have one old vivater flash that wont fire off of plussII pocket wizard but will off a multimax cus you can program the close time on a multimax.

joey-cakes · May 8, 2008

so i tried it on the studio flashes my teacher has and it worked fine. I used the PC cord for that. so today ima try using a hot shoe PC adaptor for the flash cause it doesnt have one.

THORHAMMER · May 9, 2008

I've got the skyports. I got used to exposing without TTL , its not so hard, actually ttl screws up on me a lot anyways...

The skyports are perfect, I love them and they never , ever screw up. Ive hit them from like 200 feet, never need to be further then that.

JIP · May 9, 2008

Well I guess that's why PW's are 2-$500 a pair

THORHAMMER · May 9, 2008

well not everyone needs the 1200 foot distance or whatever that the Poverty Wizzards can do.

they are fantastic, but not the only game in town. I dont think the ebay ones are good either (tooo cheap) , but still PW's are a little expensive for what they do. Its not like they transmit TTL or anything.

Although you can use them to trigger the camera, that is kind of cool, but 500$ just to shoot one light is a little overkill when you just need to shoot 20-30 feet away and also need no wires.

JIP · May 9, 2008

My point exactly, there are more things like reliability and quality that make them good. I was not saying everybody should buy them I was mereley ststing that there was a reason people buy them and you truly do get what you pay for. I am all for going the cheap route if you can but there is something to be said for the expensive route if you can afford it.

Garbz · May 9, 2008

For US$500 / pair you do not get what you pay for. Regardless of how reliable they are (and I agree in a pro environment you would choose nothing else than a PW to trigger flashes), they are just not remotely worth $500US

I wish someone would release a middle ground. An ebay trigger which has a proper antennae design with a reliable trigger connection. I'd have no problem paying 3 or 4times as much as the current ebay triggers go for.

JIP · May 10, 2008

Well if they were too expensive (they are to me by the way) they would not sell and therefore not be on the market. I agree it would be nice if there were a middle ground out there for poor guys like me to buy and I am sure there probably is I just have not looked.

joey-cakes · May 10, 2008

Ok so the ebay trigger doesnt work for the quantaray QDC 900 wa.

cheep flash + cheep trigger =

I tried using the hot shoe pc adaptor between the reciever and flash. No luck

So instead I just bought a PC cord and the two adapters. Its cheeper than the canon Hot shoe cable and it's not like I need TTL anyways.

eravedesigns · May 10, 2008

K mine came yesterday and they work on my alienbees but not my hotshoe flash.

I have been doing lots of reading and its due to the radio trigger receiver having to much resistance to the voltage produced by the flash that is used to trigger the flash.

I did some measure and i found that on my system if I did it correctly that I read around a .05 voltage drop which to me doesn't seem to high but members on dyxum believe that the drop has everything to do with it. It also could be the duration of the signal pulse isn't long enough.

Either way we are screwed unless someone can figure out an easy way to mod them into working.