How do I use my Vivitar Auto Thyristor 3700?

[alrey]

I've been without a flash in the couple months I've had my K100D, mainly because I haven't yet found the extra $300 in my budget, but also because I don't know the first thing about flashes and haven't started reading up (because it's a moot point if you can't afford one anyways).

The point is, while digging through one of my closets I found an old camera bag with an Olympus OM10 film SLR and a Vivitar Auto Thyristor 3700 flash.

It was DOA due to a set of exploded AA's in the battery bay, but after a few minutes of touch-ups with a soldering iron I heard that oh-so-beautiful sound of capacitors charging, and soon I was flashing away. The flash is probably 25 years old, but it seems to be in working order.

My problem is that I don't know anything about flashes, and one thing I didn't find was the users manual. By randomly messing with switches and slides I found out "thingy makes a bright light when I push the shutter if I set it to M/TTL", but beyond that I'm at a loss.

Can anyone clue me into what these switches do? What are DIN and ASA and what does the FSTOPS/FEET indicator tell me? What are the modes on the bottom slide beside "M/TTL"?

 

[alrey]

Aw you guys censor my favorite image host and imageshack is being sllloooowwww ;____;

Here's the important one:

 

[JIP]

This might be a good place to start. http://strobist.blogspot.com/

 

[Freddie]

Try this maybe it will help.
http://66.49.230.119/flashes_meters/vivitar_3700.pdf

 

[alrey]

That website doesn't really help, as it is all general information and - at least in the Lighting 101 section - doesn't mention anything like the markings on the flash, which is what I'm curious about.

Does anyone familiar with this flash know whether it is safe to use on the hotshoe of my K100D?

[Edit] Thank you freddie! That should help a lot.

 

[DeadEye]

That website doesn't really help, as it is all general information and - at least in the Lighting 101 section - doesn't mention anything like the markings on the flash, which is what I'm curious about.

Does anyone familiar with this flash know whether it is safe to use on the hotshoe of my K100D?

[Edit] Thank you freddie! That should help a lot.

Use a good multimeter to measure the voltage on the flash ( center pin to ground) . I have an old vivitar flash that measures 125 volts. It works good on the old vivitar body but will not on the XTI, because the XTI has to fast of a switch to trigger the flash properly