A word of caution..

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Some of you may well be aware of this, but it was news to me, and I may have learnt the expensive way.

Apparently if you store your flash unit for some time without using it, the capacitors can go bad. The correct thing to do is when you go to use it, is to gradually increase the power from minimum, so they have time to sort them selves out.

This applies to speed lights as well as the larger units too.

I'm waiting for the call from the repair guys.....
 
Some of you may well be aware of this, but it was news to me, and I may have learnt the expensive way.

Apparently if you store your flash unit for some time without using it, the capacitors can go bad. The correct thing to do is when you go to use it, is to gradually increase the power from minimum, so they have time to sort them selves out.

This applies to speed lights as well as the larger units too.

I'm waiting for the call from the repair guys.....
I've heard this, but I have some really cheap lights, and over about 5 years, they've been out of the box about a dozen times, and never missed a beat.
 
I've heard this, but I have some really cheap lights, and over about 5 years, they've been out of the box about a dozen times, and never missed a beat.

I've heard it too, my personal experience says otherwise as everything I use is second hand and whether it's 1 or 30 years old they all seem to be rock solid.

Part of that I put down to the older kit being built to a standard rather than cost but as there's no harm in giving your kit a few cycles during periods of inactivity I think it's good advice to follow.
 
I've heard this, but I have some really cheap lights, and over about 5 years, they've been out of the box about a dozen times, and never missed a beat.

Yes I guess the issue though is how long have they been left un-used at all, more than a year? My unit that blew, hadn't been touched for 18 months - 2 years.

From what I'm reading it sounds like they need to be fired up at least once or twice a year.
 
Yes I guess the issue though is how long have they been left un-used at all, more than a year? My unit that blew, hadn't been touched for 18 months - 2 years.

From what I'm reading it sounds like they need to be fired up at least once or twice a year.
I think mine have been left longer sometimes, but I might take your experience as a word of caution (now I'm building a better quality kit).
 
I had read about exercising old Flash Guns as well, but nearly all my veteran old flashes have not been a problem (Olympus T20, T32, Nissin 360 TW x 3) and are all going strong with only very occasional use for multiple flash off camera manual exposure set ups. Some of these specific guns must be over 30 years old, trigger voltage friendly for my radio receivers and these Guns are still readily available on Ebay for peanuts. The only exception is one of my Nissin Guns will only work with brand new batteries but it eats these batteries alive in just a few flashes, so I presume this would be a separate issue.
 
The problem is that electrolytic capacitors will leak over time, and therefore fail. Heat also kills them. I have fixed several LCD TV's of late with 25p capacitors having failed in the power supplies (TV will flash on and off when attempting to turn on). I also fixed the PCB on our central heating boiler for the same reason, but in that case I used higher temp rated caps.

A lot of modern kit is slung out as US when all it needs to fix them is a few pence worth of caps.
 
Just had the call from the repairers..... New capacitors and PCB ....£1069!!!

If its just the caps that have failed, go on Farnells or similar web site and buy them and replace the duff ones. Will cost you more for postage than for the caps!
 
I have fixed several LCD TV's of late with 25p capacitors having failed in the power supplies (TV will flash on and off when attempting to turn on).

This is a different issue though. There are many TVs now which have been fitted with inferior capacitors. Someone working for one of the major capacitor manufacturers (Rubycon) left the company taking the electrolyte formula with him and set up on his own, undercutting the competition - except there was a mistake in their electrolyte manufacturing leaving thousands of pieces of equipment with capacitors which will fail prematurely.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2010/jun/29/dell-problems-capacitors


Steve.
 
We get caps fail sometimes, it's inevitable.
If it's outside our 3 year warranty we take the view that they may or may not be chargeable depending on how much use they've had, i.e. if our repair guy tells us that the flash tube isn't discoloured, indicating only light use, then we feel that the warranty just wasn't long enough and we don't bother to charge.

If it is chargeable then our typical repair cost is £30 including return delivery - caps aren't expensive and it doesn't take long to replace them. It's possible I suppose that the OP has been unlucky and that a cap failed and caused damage to other components too, it can happen. Still, £1069 does seem very high and the answer is probably to get more quotes.
 
Lencarta handbook says something about firing them up once every two months. But my Elinchrom handbooks don't say anything, and a quick look at a Profoto D1 monolight handbook doesn't say anything, either.

I've never had a problem, and some of my flash heads get very little use indeed, like maybe once a year - simply because I hardly ever need to use them all and I always just grab whatever unit I used last, simply because it's to hand. Maybe I should revise that habit.

I recently got an old Bowens monolight out of the loft, where it had sat for about 20 years. Worked perfectly. But I seem recall something about older capacitors being more enduring? Maybe Garry knows more about that.
 
Lencarta handbook says something about firing them up once every two months. But my Elinchrom handbooks don't say anything, and a quick look at a Profoto D1 monolight handbook doesn't say anything, either.

I've never had a problem, and some of my flash heads get very little use indeed, like maybe once a year - simply because I hardly ever need to use them all and I always just grab whatever unit I used last, simply because it's to hand. Maybe I should revise that habit.

I recently got an old Bowens monolight out of the loft, where it had sat for about 20 years. Worked perfectly. But I seem recall something about older capacitors being more enduring? Maybe Garry knows more about that.
Yes, the very old units have much simpler technology and are more forgiving
 
As Phil guessed, it is a Profoto unit, and having a a quick Google, I can't find anyone else who repairs them.

I'll have to make some calls on Monday, but knowing Profoto, I wouldn't be surprised if they've made sure you can't get third party repairs!
 
As Phil guessed, it is a Profoto unit, and having a a quick Google, I can't find anyone else who repairs them.

I'll have to make some calls on Monday, but knowing Profoto, I wouldn't be surprised if they've made sure you can't get third party repairs!

I think it's only Luminary Lighting in the UK, you'd think there'd be more places for such a big brand.
 
Eek! You could buy a system for that. But clearly not the same quality.
 
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