Fried Flash

Brett

I was using a Vivitar 2000 flash with a Wein peanut slave shooting some skate photos with my friends when all of a sudden it stopped working. I've used it before in my house just to test the slave but this time it fried. I thought the batteries were dead so I switched them for some new ones but still nothing. I started putting things away and picked up the flash. It was getting really hot. I took the batteries out and smoke started pouring out of the area where the batteries go. So my question is if anyone knows why this would happen?

Blurmore

Brett wrote:

I was using a Vivitar 2000 flash with a Wein peanut slave shooting some skate photos with my friends when all of a sudden it stopped working. I've used it before in my house just to test the slave but this time it fried. I thought the batteries were dead so I switched them for some new ones but still nothing. I started putting things away and picked up the flash. It was getting really hot. I took the batteries out and smoke started pouring out of the area where the batteries go. So my question is if anyone knows why this would happen?

The electronics of a flash involve a capacitor which sucks power out of the batteries and builds it up untill it has stored enough to produce a set amount of flash. This ends up being quite a considerable amount of power. If you ever take apart a disposable camera you can feel just how much power because they are notorious for discharging on people who mess with them. It is enough power that someone base a device off of a disposable camera designed to fry RFID tags between the contacts of the flash. Youd be hard pressed to kill yourself with a AA operated flash as the amperage is no where near the voltage, but it can still deliver a stinging zap. Most likely reason for your smokin? A short, which will fry they capacitor and make a foul smelling oil burning smell. A puff of smoke can happen from a burnt or blow flash tube, but this smell is usually more electric and usually short lived. Either way the flash is probably un/not worth repairing. I use a Vivitar 3900 6AA flash and I highly recommend it for use as a slave, and they can be purchased on ebay for 25 bucks.

Bob Bell

Flashes blow all the time. Canon's 550ex is good for 2 years of constant use.

I use sunpack 383 supers as extra flashes and I buy the color filter kit for them to shoot into white satin umbrellas.

Think the flash is $60 bux. The Vivitar 285 is also very popular and might use the same sync cord connection as your flash.

BTW you might of damaged your batteries so when you charge them watch them for temperture, bulging, etc...

NiMH are 1.2volt 4 of them are 4.8 volts. A lot less than the 9 volts people test with their tongues. The amperage is also too low to do any real damage.