Question for people expierence with Cactus V4's

[MOmilkman]

So last night I broke out all the gear in front of my nice new white vinyl canvas backdrop. I have never had a problem with my v4's firing,... until now. For the most part I have been doing long exposure high speed photography with the V4's. I've just been firing the test button on the transmitter manually and everything has worked fine.
I have tested them out previously with the transmitter on the hot shoe and haven't had any problems until last night.

I set everything up in the garage with the transmitter on the hot shoe, both recievers locked onto the flash and all channels set the same and both switches tunred on on the recievers. (which incidently I hate the switches because when I see the red on the switch that would indicate to me they are off - but it's just the opposite)

When I fired the camera it was pretty much hit and miss to trigger the flashes but more miss than hit. I wasn't more than 12 feet from the srobes so that shouldn't be a problem.
I'd say about every 10th shot I might be able to get the strobes to trigger.
I had the BG light on 1/1 so I knew it needed a little recycle time before I could fire again but that wasn't the problem either because my key light was at 1/32 and it wasn't firing either. (both guns had freshly recharged Energizer batterys)

So my next thought is since I left the swithces on the recieves in the "on" position for several days maybe the batterys are drained. Besides, they still had the cheapo, crap batteries in them from when I recieved them. So I replaced them with brand new Duracells.
Still wouldn't fire for me.

My next step is replacing the cheap-o, no-name, battery in the transmitter. After that I have no idea. Is the transmitter not reading from the hot shoe? Because when I hit the test button, it fires the flashes.

Since I was inside in a dark area and only 10-12 feet from my BG I just enabled the wireless capability of my 7D to do the work.

Am I expierencing the same thing a lot of others have with the V2's. Am I finally getting what I paid for because this is the only thing I have really went cheap on because since I'm not pro and I just do this for fun I couldn't justifiy the high dollar Pocket Wizards radio transmitters.

[zona5101]

there are midrange radio triggers as well so you don't have to jump all the way to PW. The alienbee/cyber commanders are decent, i am a radio popper user myself...

..anyway on to your issue at hand. I would check for good contact on the center pin of the transmitter. Push the transmitter down, rock it forward or back up, down and see if you can find a spot that fires consistantly to test for intermittant contact.

[bhursey]

So have you or have you not replaced the transmitter battery? You do have to replace that one. If you don't if it gets low you will have miss fires with the v4..

[MOmilkman]

Originally Posted by zona5101

there are midrange radio triggers as well so you don't have to jump all the way to PW. The alienbee/cyber commanders are decent, i am a radio popper user myself...

..anyway on to your issue at hand. I would check for good contact on the center pin of the transmitter. Push the transmitter down, rock it forward or back up, down and see if you can find a spot that fires consistantly to test for intermittant contact.

I'll look into those Poppers Bruce if things don't get better. As all of you well know there's nothing more frustrating than getting everything set up and then not being able to get your equipment to work.

I was actually thinking about the contact to the transmitter this morning and wondering if that might have been the issue. I might pull it back a bit before I lock it in next time. Hopefully that will resolve the issue. Thanks!

Originally Posted by bhursey

So have you or have you not replaced the transmitter battery? You do have to replace that one. If you don't if it gets low you will have miss fires with the v4..

I purchased the battery this morning and will put it in tonight when I get home from work. The manual says it's good for 5,000 acutations (or something like that) per battery. Good to know mine make it though 100. lol (if it was in fact the battery - either way, it's getting replaced) I'm more inclined to think it is the battery because I took it off the hot shoe a couple times and tried to fire the flashes manually and they still didn't fire.
At least I have a couple different things to try out now.

[MOmilkman]

Dang! Bought the wrong battery!

Will try again tomorrow night.

[MOmilkman]

Alrighty, just in case your curious or anyone else has this problem in the future and they happen to do a search on V4's...

I replaced the battery in the transmitter. While that may or may not have helped contribute to the problem, I don't think that had anything to do with it.
After getting everything set up again I fired the camera several times with my wireless remote (trying a few sample portrait pics). The camera would trigger but the flash guns would not again. So I moved the transmitter backwards a little on the hotshoe, locked it down and still nothing.
So I reached down and triggered the shutter on the camera and BAM the flashes go off. Hit the trigger on the wireless remote. Nothing. Hit the button on the camera. Flashes go off.

So it looks like there has to be something in the wireless remote that is keeping the cactus's from working. I have no idea why but I just started using the self timer on the camera and everything went well from there on out.

In case your wondering, here is the remote in question.

[oldwolf]

Try the cybersyncs by Paul C. Buff (alien bees guy). Those are the ones I got after I tinkered with the V2 for a bit. Way less expensive than Pocket Wizards or Radio Poppers.

[MOmilkman]

Originally Posted by oldwolf

Try the cybersyncs by Paul C. Buff (alien bees guy). Those are the ones I got after I tinkered with the V2 for a bit. Way less expensive than Pocket Wizards or Radio Poppers.

Well, now that I believe I got my V4's functional again I'll stick with them until I start having trouble again. I'm sure the alien bee's will be next up if needed.
Thanks!

[inkista]

Huh. Loose wire maybe, or the radio signals between the wireless trigger and the Cactus triggers are interfering with each other? Maybe consider getting a set of V5s to use as a wireless remote? They're unlikely to interfere with the V4s, since they're on a completely different frequency band. And you'll have them around as a backup set if the V4s ever give up the ghost.