Do many of you carry spare fiber optic cords?

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Draq

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Just wondering, for those of you who use fiber optic cables, do you usually carry a spare? Have you had much problem with breakage?

Thanks for any input.
 
I do carry a spare and recommend doing so. Although I have never had anyone come back to us having had one break...I personally have lost them underwater and had customers lose them underwater. Typically, the optical cables are not nearly as secured to the camera as a standard Sync cord...thus if and when you snag the cable on a reef or other object (which is what has happened to me), you may not notice until later on in the dive that the cable was ripped off and realize your strobe isn't firing.

Ive seen it happen and it definitely has happened to me, luckily I had a back up.
 
Backups are a good idea :)

I have to admit I never had a back up fibre optic cable (and still don't). I also never had it get snagged even to the point where it was loose and wouldn't fire a strobe. I used the Inon strobe and Oly 5050 housing. Maybe it had a better connection than the ones H20 is talking about coz I was forever shoving my rig into holes and asking it to take more a beating than it was probably meant for LOL

But, even though I didn't/don't, I do think they are a very good idea. Especially if you are diving some place where getting a new cord in quickly is not a viable option!
 
Yes, I do carry one but have never had to use it. I also have an Inon strobe and 5050 rig and so far it's been bulletproof.
 
I use fiber optic cables with two Inon Z-240 strobes for TTL and manual photography.
I have never lost a cable or had one damaged. I have one cable I have used for over twelve years to fire a slave strobe while shooting film cameras. The best part about the fiber cables is that you can hold the cable up to a light source and see that it is not broken. You can also clip the end of the cable if it gets crimped or dirty. The fiber cables in conjunction with the Z-240 strobes are giving me the best TTL I have used to date.
Last I do carry a spare cable as I did when I was using wired cables. The difference is that they cost less, take up less space and last longer than the past wired cables I have owned.

Phil Rudin
 
Thank you all for the input. I seem to carry so many spares and backups that I hate to keep adding more and would like to reduce my kit a little bit. I'll probably get a backup but leave it ashore.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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