Sunpak G-flash strobe

[scubaPhillip]

The Sunpak G-Flash from the ToCAD America company is a discontinued product. My G-Flash for some reason took on water and was damaged beyond repair. The ToCAD company took great care of me. Whatever problems they had with the G-Flash model they are a stand-up company with friendly and sincere people. I will be looking at their new products for my next purchase.

 

[Paul Lenharr]

I have had the Sunpak G-Flash unit for almost 2 years now. It has been on 47 dives, including Ocean, Quarry, Blackwater, and Cavern dives. It has never malfunctioned, never leaked, and always fired. I'm happy with it.

 

[tarponchik]

Funny I found this old thread...My G-Flash works for 6 years w/o any problems, and I've been down to >100 ft with it many times. I'd buy a 2nd one if I have a good offer.

 

[Larry C]

Glad you've had good luck with yours. I have to say that Tocad was very responsive as long as the product was in warranty and replaced mine twice, but obviously I'm not alone in having had problems with the battery door system. It's a shame the battery compartment wasn't sealed from the rest of the unit, because otherwise it was a very nice little strobe.

 

[tarponchik]

Glad you've had good luck with yours. I have to say that Tocad was very responsive as long as the product was in warranty and replaced mine twice, but obviously I'm not alone in having had problems with the battery door system. It's a shame the battery compartment wasn't sealed from the rest of the unit, because otherwise it was a very nice little strobe.

The door (or lid?) is quite lousy and not very user-friendly. You have to break your fingers to open it, and locking it tight is tricky. After the door fell out before one of my earlier dives (I guess I was lucky this did not happen underwater!) I always took special care making sure the door is in all the way and tightly locked (pushing it this and this way, trying to pull it out, etc). It would be much better if they made a screw-on lid like most flashlights have. Another pain in the @ss is the screw that holds the flash on its arm. It quickly got rusty despite all my efforts to rinse the flash between the dives, and the flash became too loose in the socket. This is certainly a "D" in engineering for someone since the rust is the result of a galvanic pair formed between two different metals in sea water. Otherwise, I've been quite happy so far.

 

[Larry C]

That one's easy. Get a jar of Lanocote and use it generously on all exposed threads. I previously had horrible problems with the threads on my sync cables welding themselves electrolytically to the aluminum ttl bulkheads. I picked up a jar of Lanocote at Backscatter and they always look like new. I use it now on all exposed hardware. Best $10 I ever spent (having already invested about $500 in new ttl units and sync cords due to not having it!)

 

[tarponchik]

Thanks for the tip, Larry. They got Lonocote at Amazon, so finding it is not a problem.

 

[haring]

Where can I get one of these nowadays? They no longer make them...

 

[Larry C]

You can't. You are correct. They no longer make them. My last warranty request was denied for that reason. You are far better off looking at a Sea & Sea YS-01 or YS-02 (Same basic unit, but one is manual only and cheaper, one is ttl) or the amazing little Inon S-2000, which is tiny, reasonably powerful (certainly enough for macro and fish portrait type shots) and costs about the same as the YS with ttl.