My SB600 died

CabanSail

The other day I was doing some indoor shots. The first few were fine but then they were getting quite dark, so checked the flash & no output. The batteries had been freshly charged but thought they had gone. Put up the ISO & continued to shoot what was required.

When I got home I put in a new set of batteries and still nothing. I can hear the inverter oscillating and the Red "Ready" light comes on. When I push the test button the red light dips but no output.

Looked at the likely cost of a repair and for a 3 year old flash it was going to cost a substantial proportion of a new one. Had a look around and there aren't many SB600's selling now. I read up about the SB700 and SB900. Did not really fancy the 700 and got a good price on a 900 from Italy. No import taxes here for items under $1000, so ordered it and it arrived a week later.

Since I ordered the new flash I have done a bit more reading and apparently the most likely cause of the failure is the Xenon Tube. I pulled the flash apart just before I found this article which would have made things a bit easier. He is a bit wrong about a few electronic things but still good information. Rang the local Nikon office. The Xenon Tube (part # FSA03601-XE701) is available for about $12 each but the postage is $9.90, so I will order a spare one too. It's worth $34 to see if I can get it working again.

Ohhh and if you read some of the posts on other forums they warn about how dangerous this is because to the capacitor voltage. This is, they assure you, more than enough the kill you. Well muggins here managed to hang himself across the Cap twice and has lived to tell the tale. Sure it wasn't exactly fun, but not even a scorch mark or the satisfying smell of burning flesh.

Hopefully the parts will be here soon & will update if it worked.

DaireQuinlan

CabanSail wrote: »

Ohhh and if you read some of the posts on other forums they warn about how dangerous this is because to the capacitor voltage. This is, they assure you, more than enough the kill you. Well muggins here managed to hang himself across the Cap twice and has lived to tell the tale. Sure it wasn't exactly fun, but not even a scorch mark or the satisfying smell of burning flesh.

You're lucky ! I had a deep burn on one of my fingers from a disposable camera flash capacitor, hurt like the bejaysus at the time and took ages to heal up, got really icky and ulcerated before it did.

NakedDex

People love saying those capacitors will do varying degrees of damage from spasms to death, but they rarely advise to just go ahead and discharge the capacitor before working on it. It takes, literally, two seconds but they seem to prefer the drama of life or death repairs. At least he did so (though why he used a meter to discharge it I'm not sure).

Looking forward to hear how successful this is. My SB-600 hasn't given me any problems yet, but if this is the most common issue, I'll have to keep an eye on your progress.

pete4130

I hadnt used my Sb800 for a while until just before Xmas and similar thing happening. I could hear the flash wanting to turn on.charge up but couldnt/wouldnt. Got some sand paper on the contacts as they were a bit oxidised and it worked a treat. Maybe give that a go. Hope you get it sorted.

FoxT

AFAIK these caps, fully charged, run to about 300-400V, and as they need to store about 50 - 70 Joules, they would I expect be in the 1000-2000 uF range.

60 Joules is quite enough energy to burn you. I don't know it it would kill you or not, I expect that you would need to be unlucky - but there is no question that there is a real risk of pain/injury.

Removing the batteries & discharging the cap is a simple & sensible precaution!

CabanSail

pete4130 wrote: »

I hadnt used my Sb800 for a while until just before Xmas and similar thing happening. I could hear the flash wanting to turn on.charge up but couldnt/wouldnt. Got some sand paper on the contacts as they were a bit oxidised and it worked a treat. Maybe give that a go. Hope you get it sorted.

Trouble is that it will not even fire with the Test button.

zerohamster

Glad to hear that Nikon are being nice with supplying the parts (they are notorious in the tech world for who they are supplying parts to and taking ages in doing so too)

Ive shocked myself on a disposably camera's capacitor which are much smaller and have less capacitance then an external flash and although it didnt physically leave a noticable burn (just a red mark) it did feel like my finger wasnt attatched to my hand for about 5 minutes and the shock caused me to throw the disposable camera :rolleyes:

There are discharge tools you can buy for about €30 that beep when discharged but all you need is a 2KΩ 5watt resistor soldered to some probes or small insulated crocodile clip jump leads which are usually easier to use regarding capacitors as you dont want to touch any other part of the circuit whilst touching one terminal of the capacitor or you could send that ~300-450V down the wrong circuit and fry it.
This only will take about 1-3 seconds to discharge most camera and off camera flash's capacitors safely.
Also insulating the resistor is a good idea so you dont accidentally touch one of the terminals on it while discharging.

JayEnnis

I must look into this, that's exactly what's happening with my sb-600. What does the capacitor look like? I took mine apart but didn't touch anything on the circuit board.

CabanSail

I have not seen the Capacitor in this flash as it is in the base, with the batteries. I have only taken apart the head where the Xenon tube is located.