DIY UW digital flash

[ChrisA]

I just noticed that Wein makes a "digital slave" This is a little cube of clear plexiglas that has a "hot shoe" on top and a "flash detector" inside. This little $45 gadget will turn any standrad flash into a digital slave (it will ignore the preflashes)

Vivitar has made the "285" model flash for years. Its a standard with weding photograers
and others, it's rugged, powerfull and cheap. street price is $90.

So for $135 I can have a very powerfull digital slave flash. All I need is a housing and
I'll have one that works under water. A flash housing should be much simpler than a
camera housing to make as there are no controls required.

 

[O2BBubbleFree]

How is your project going?

Here's a link you might be interested in:

http://www.atlimp.com/slaveflash.htm

If you look around his site, he has built several different plexi-glass enclosures.

Good luck, and keep us posted.

 

[cfelliot]

How is your project going?

Here's a link you might be interested in:

http://www.atlimp.com/slaveflash.htm

If you look around his site, he has built several different plexi-glass enclosures.

Good luck, and keep us posted.

How water-proof are the pelican cases? I use one for a case while in my kayak, but 2-3 bar is a whole different story!

 

[Tom Winters]

Lasy year, I saw a flash that a French guy made with a Sunpak and an Otter box. It looked pretty good. I wonder if the fiber optic cable is needed to trigger the slave strobe - when I used studio stobes on slave, I used to use a tiny little Vivitar on the hot shoe to set the whole system off. Might be worth a try.
http://eocean.free.fr/projects/castorstrobe/indexstr.htm

 

[Freeflyer]

Otter make a completely clear box, which might work for you. Put you slave adapter facing backwards and the flash facing forward. Mount it on an arm an inche or so in front of the camera, when the camera flash fires, so will the big flash.

We've used an otter box like this with a light meter (for an environmental project) and it's been good down to forty meters. No holes to drill, or weaken the case.

Might be worth a try.

J.

 

[cfelliot]

I decided to build a UW slave flash based on the ideas of Tom Rose in the post above by 3dent.

When I bought the Pelican 1010 case there was a tag on it that said it was only rated to 3 feet. Upon inspection, it appeared that the case could be sealed for deeper use with a silicon sealant. The only problem would be opening it!!! If I could make the unit last an entire trip, it would be no problem opening, cleaning and resealing for the next trip when I got home. The following is my attempted solution:

I bought the Pelican 1010 case and a small slave flash unit.

The flash is mounted to the case with the mount that came with the flash. I did cut it in half retaining the locking clip.

I wanted more power than the AAA batteries could provide and I had the room in the case. Double AA holder is from Radio Shack as is the normally-closed magnetic switch.

The idea is to use Energizer Lithium Photo Batteries which provide tons of power and to attach a magnet to the case to turn the unit off when not in use.

Total cost $35.

Chuck

 

[Scubacastor]

For some less sealings and higher depth (160 ft), have a look on otterboxes and maybe on my project (sorry it's in French but it's self explanatory) :

http://eocean.free.fr/projects/castorstrobe/indexstr.htm