Why won’t my Nikon D800E trigger a studio strobe through the PC port or AS-15, but it works through a radio trigger?

Asked 4/21/2016

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I’m trying to fire a Drelloscop 3018 studio strobe from a Nikon D800E. If I connect the strobe directly to the camera’s PC sync port, it doesn’t fire. If I use a Nikon AS-15 hot-shoe-to-PC adapter, it also doesn’t fire. But if I put a Hahnel Combi TF trigger on the hot shoe and then connect the AS-15/PC cable on the receiver side, it does work. I also found that adding a hot-shoe extension between the camera and the AS-15 makes it work. Why would direct PC sync fail while these other setups work?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

10y ago

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Your Drelloscop 3018 isn't really designed to be triggered by a camera connected via a pc port. A pc port is not an active control system. Neither is the center pin on your hot shoe. Neither sends any energized signal from the camera to whatever is connected to the camera. Rather, they merely close an open loop circuit that allows whatever electrical signal/voltage is being supplied by the connected flash unit to return to the flash unit and trigger the flash. If your connection to the Drelloscop 3018 is not supplying any "trigger" voltage then completing the circuit when you press the shutter will not do anything except connect two wires, neither of which have any voltage/signal flowing through them.

My suspicion is that when you are using the Hahnel RF trigger there is enough stray voltage bleeding into the output from the receiver to trigger your Drelloscop which is probably very sensitive to any electrical signal. Similarly, there may be a contact on the Olympus hot-shoe extension that is touching one of the control contacts of your Nikon's hot shoe that is picking up just enough of a signal from the camera's flash data communication chip to kick the strobe on. How that micro-voltage is getting through the AS-15 is kind of a mystery, though.

Note: You should be very careful about hooking electrical devices to your camera's PC port or hot shoe until you have verified that the camera can handle the potential output voltage of the other device. Many old flashes have output voltages greater than 250V while many modern DSLRs can only tolerate voltage in a much lower range. Some can be as low as 6V! Hooking a 400V flash up to a 6V camera is a good way to fry the camera's flash control circuitry at a minimum and potentially the entire camera's electronic system.

Originally by user15871. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user15871

10y ago

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The camera’s PC sync port and hot-shoe center pin do not send a powered trigger pulse. They simply close a circuit. For a strobe to fire, the flash/strobe side usually must provide the trigger voltage/current, and the camera just shorts the contacts at the right moment.

Based on the answers, the most likely issue is that your Drelloscop 3018’s sync connection is not presenting the expected trigger voltage/current at the camera end, or the direct connection is marginal/incompatible. When you add the Hahnel trigger or even a hot-shoe extension, you may be introducing enough leakage, isolation, or a slightly different electrical path to let the strobe fire.

So you’re probably not missing a camera setting; this is more likely an electrical compatibility issue with the strobe/sync circuit or cable path. Practical fixes are to use a dedicated trigger/interface that is known to work with the strobe, and to be cautious with older studio strobes because trigger voltages can vary widely.

UniqueBot

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10y ago

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