Did I break my RF602s?

JonathanRyan

JonathanRyan

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Jonathan
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Everybody raves about them and they are pretty cheap - so I bought a set of RF602s to back up my Pocket Wizards. Yesterday I took them as the only radio triggers on a job for the first time. Big mistake.

They worked in the church to trigger a D3 (remote camera for a request shot), they worked later in the church (SB800 on a stick when my CLS system mysteriously stopped working), they worked at about 3:45 in the snow to trigger a location pack for some portraits. But they didn't work at 6:30 to trigger the same pack to shoot some bridesmaids in the snow :( They didn't work at all after that and they don't work now :( I had to gaff tape stuff together to shoot first dance.......

Symptoms: All lights flash correctly but when I hit the test button OR put transmitter on camera the receivers don't hear the signal. Green and red lights light up on transmitter.

Tried dropping the batteries and fiddling with the DIP switches (which I'd never got round to setting). Nada.

I was on my own so I know they didn't get banged or dropped in snow.

Any ideas?
 
Batteries?

As I'm sure you know, RF-602 has a great rep but a guy on another forum was having problems recently and was about to spend big money on something else when he discovered his were fakes.

Then he got some new kosha jobbies and was singing their praises... :shrug:
 
HoppyUK said:
Batteries?
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I'd be very surprised - those CR2s should last years. Also I'd expect intermittent as they died or the LEDs to stop working if it was completely dead.

They shouldn't be fakes since they came from a "well known supplier on an international auction site" :)

I guess I'll get some batteries and a new transmitter and see what works. But these might be for the bin :(
 
I had some 602's Jonathan and the build quality is shoddy and AAA batteries on the receivers and CR2's on the transmitters are a pain in the neck. I think for occasional use they are fine but I wouldn't rely on them.
 
Yeah this is why I need an assistant.

Just spoken to Mike (who assists me at weddings but wasn't there on Saturday). "Take the battery out of the transmitter for a full 60 seconds then refit - it reboots the sync".

And it does indeed :)

He also knows other stuff about half press tricks, drifting sync and the benefits of taking the battery out of the transmitter when in storage.

I just take pictures.

I'm starting to see why Pocket Wizards cost so much.
 
Yeah all fixed.

But if I'd known more about them I probably wouldn't have bought them.

Good for the money but not good enough for pro use.
 
JonathanRyan said:
Yeah this is why I need an assistant.

Just spoken to Mike (who assists me at weddings but wasn't there on Saturday). "Take the battery out of the transmitter for a full 60 seconds then refit - it reboots the sync".

And it does indeed :)

He also knows other stuff about half press tricks, drifting sync and the benefits of taking the battery out of the transmitter when in storage.

I just take pictures.

I'm starting to see why Pocket Wizards cost so much.
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Sorry you've had trouble Jon. I got an RF-602 set to try, liked them, and bought four more, and an extra trigger. Sold my pair of PWs, and pocketed the change, and not regretted it for a minute. And I can (reliably) fire five remote guns for around £100 :D

The RF-602 works fine for me, and they also do a few clever things that the basic PW syncs don't - the wake-up facility for one, and you can also hack remote second-curtain sync and HSS off an optical slave (which the PWs won't do with Canon, as they only use the central firing pin). RF-602 is much smaller and neater too :)
 
JonathanRyan said:
Yeah all fixed.

But if I'd known more about them I probably wouldn't have bought them.

Good for the money but not good enough for pro use.
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One thing to be careful with is that they're not hot swappable, make sure to switch both flash and triggers off before mounting or dismounting, otherwise you run the risk of shorting the receiver unit. This goes for any of the cheap flashgun triggers.
 
Flash In The Pan said:
One thing to be careful with is that they're not hot swappable, make sure to switch both flash and triggers off before mounting or dismounting, otherwise you run the risk of shorting the receiver unit. This goes for any of the cheap flashgun triggers.
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Thanks for that Graham - I didn't know that. I tend to turn stuff off before I do anything anyway, but now I know this better safe than sorry!!
 
This kind of stuff is driving me mad - SURELY a manufacturer out there could produce a something fairly well built, takes AAs and has a headphone jack output, that just...worked, every time... for around the £50 a unit price mark? EVERY product out there seems to have a massive flaw of some variety, some of which could even be solved with no additional cost (make skyports bigger and have AAs in....).

Even my 602s RC7's are giving me grief with sb24s, and one rx repeatedly fires itself. Annoying.

It all seems like one hell of a fuss for something that's essentially a bloody garage door opener...

Dave Hobby's right, I'll just end up with pocket wizards... was hoping that 602s could delay it a wee bit at least :/
 
itsdavedotnet said:
This kind of stuff is driving me mad - SURELY a manufacturer out there could produce a something fairly well built, takes AAs and has a headphone jack output, that just...worked, every time... for around the £50 a unit price mark? EVERY product out there seems to have a massive flaw of some variety, some of which could even be solved with no additional cost (make skyports bigger and have AAs in....).

Even my 602s RC7's are giving me grief with sb24s, and one rx repeatedly fires itself. Annoying.

It all seems like one hell of a fuss for something that's essentially a bloody garage door opener...

Dave Hobby's right, I'll just end up with pocket wizards... was hoping that 602s could delay it a wee bit at least :/
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One supplier told me (not FITP) that YN have been quietly updating the RF-602 and that he has had zero returns from the 'latest version' which was introduced two or three months ago. Apparently.

He also said that a MkII version was due out soon (he doesn't know when) that would address all the outstanding issues like AA batteries, locking feet, repositioned RX switch, on-off switch on the TX, higher voltage tolerance for older guns etc.
 
HoppyUK said:
One supplier told me (not FITP) that YN have been quietly updating the RF-602 and that he has had zero returns from the 'latest version' which was introduced two or three months ago. Apparently.

He also said that a MkII version was due out soon (he doesn't know when) that would address all the outstanding issues like AA batteries, locking feet, repositioned RX switch, on-off switch on the TX, higher voltage tolerance for older guns etc.
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awesome. They need to ditch the strange 3 pin connector on the back of the 602s too, and use stereo 3.5mm jacks if need be. The atlas was *so* close to being there... if they could have its price they'd sell zillions.
 
My RF 602 have never missed a beat, used them at weddings, on location shoots, the wake up function is a god send. I must admit for storage i have always kept the battery out of the transmitter as its the test button is going to be pressed all the time... maybe a recessed button would be better. I agree that all the triggers and receivers need some sort of locking mech.
 
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