How to break a new flash cord ...

Manfr3d

... simply use your new Canon OC-E3 Off Camera Shoe Cord like this for a while:


And eventualy it will fall apart like this:

All threads on the flash adapter are torn apart or broke away. No wonder, they are only 1mm thick.


Yet, no damage on the foot part and no bent screws.

The thing just fell apart when I used it, no instantaneous force was applied.
I was lucky that the flash fell onto my bag and not on the ground.

Obviously Canon didn't design the new waterproof flash cord for people
who want to shoot verticals or who want to use it with a flash modifier.

Sorry but I had to vent, a 70€ cord that breaks this easily sucks. :bluduh

Scott_Quier

I guess it's time to say hello to something like epoxy resin glue

NeilL

Sheeesh!!! My sympathy.

Glad other damage was avoided!

What are you going to do?

Neil

Manfr3d

I think I'm going to fill the whole upper part with epoxy like Scott suggested and put some longer screws in there.
The original screws only reached like 3mm into the broken threads. Thats barely half of the total depth of those threads.

cmason

Manfr3d wrote:

I think I'm going to fill the whole upper part with epoxy like Scott suggested and put some longer screws in there.
The original screws only reached like 3mm into the broken threads. Thats barely half of the total depth of those threads.

Perfect time to turn your 2 ft cord into a 5 foot cord

claudermilk

Hmm, looks like the RRS wedding bracket? That's one of those ones that flips the flash sideways from the looks of it. This pretty much confirms my suspicion that they place a side force the components were not designed fer & are a bad idea--and why I've got the other RRS bracket or the Newton one--both of which keep the flash upright. Anyway, it sucks that the thing broke like that.

Manfr3d

claudermilk wrote:

Hmm, looks like the RRS wedding bracket? That's one of those ones that flips the flash sideways from the looks of it. This pretty much confirms my suspicion that they place a side force the components were not designed fer & are a bad idea--and why I've got the other RRS bracket or the Newton one--both of which keep the flash upright. Anyway, it sucks that the thing broke like that.

Yes that is the RRS WPF-1 wedding bracket. The cord worked quite well for
some time. The flash diffuser being off axis with the shoe seemed to cause
too much torque over time and caused the breaking of the threads.

NeilL

Manfr3d wrote:

Yes that is the RRS WPF-1 wedding bracket. The cord worked quite well for
some time. The flash diffuser being off axis with the shoe seemed to cause
too much torque over time and caused the breaking of the threads.

Yeah, but you know, there is still no excuse for that kind of shoddy design. There's going to be some torque on it even without the diffuser. It was built to fail quickly. For the price you should get something more than the quality of a cheap toy!

Once again, I sympathise.

Neil

darkdragon

Wow, this sucks. Sorry this happened to you, but I'm really glad you posted it. I have the same setup (sans the light modifier) and the thought of this kind of damage never even entered my mind. I have always been careful to watch the stress on the flash foot area, but never even thought that the stress might just pull the two halves of the adapter appart.

Hmmm....now i'm thinking I should find a way to reinforce that before it happens. Maybe longer screws like you are going to do. Maybe I should take mine appart and use Gorrilla Glue around the edge plus longer screws with glue in those too.

Art Scott

Here is an option that I think would be even better....possibly.........drill out the screw holes and use small bolts with nuts...if the screws go from bottom to top....then the nuts would be visible bit they will hold much better than just longer screws.......or use longer screws and fill the cavity up with silicone adhesive.....this would "glue" it at every spot that was touched by the silicone essentially making it solid and waterproof.

Manfr3d

darkdragon wrote:

Hmmm....now i'm thinking I should find a way to reinforce that before it happens. Maybe longer screws like you are going to do. Maybe I should take mine appart and use Gorrilla Glue around the edge plus longer screws with glue in those too.

Thats what I would do in your place. Just be careful that the new screws
you use are not thicker than the old ones. The plastic threads are very
hard and brittle and I'm guessing they will not behave elastic and just break open.

ziggy53

Art Scott wrote:

Here is an option that I think would be even better....possibly.........drill out the screw holes and use small bolts with nuts...if the screws go from bottom to top....then the nuts would be visible bit they will hold much better than just longer screws.......or use longer screws and fill the cavity up with silicone adhesive.....this would "glue" it at every spot that was touched by the silicone essentially making it solid and waterproof.

It's a great idea from an engineering perspective except I don't think there is enough clearance on the top near the shoe mount, i.e. the shoe-mount interferes.

I did purchase a third-party off-camera cord that I use as primary (the Canon cord is backup) and it has a much more robust formed metal case for the bracket-side to hold the flash.

I think it is this one:

http://www.adorama.com/FAOCSCCAS.html

Here are some pics of it:

Scott_Quier

Art Scott wrote:

Here is an option that I think would be even better....possibly.........drill out the screw holes and use small bolts with nuts...if the screws go from bottom to top....then the nuts would be visible bit they will hold much better than just longer screws.......or use longer screws and fill the cavity up with silicone adhesive.....this would "glue" it at every spot that was touched by the silicone essentially making it solid and waterproof.

I like this idea and I might actually find the time to do it

So far, I've been quite lucky but I have a bracket that keeps the flash above the camera and the camera actually rotates under the flash.

Manfr3d

ziggy53 wrote:

I did purchase a third-party off-camera cord that I use as primary (the Canon cord is backup) and it has a much more robust formed metal case for the bracket-side to hold the flash.

I think it is this one:

http://www.adorama.com/FAOCSCCAS.html

Uh nice! I might buy one for myself if repairing efforts turn out fruitless. Thanks for the link!

ziggy53

Manfr3d wrote:

Uh nice! I might buy one for myself if repairing efforts turn out fruitless. Thanks for the link!

I should caution you that the "reviews" for that product are not very good. Most of the problems seem to relate with how to remove the cable's connection to the shoe of the camera. My cable (again I can't remember for sure where I purchased it) has a lever connected to a retractable pin. In order to remove the connector you have to lift the lever while sliding the connector backward.

I haven't had any problems personally but the negative reviews make me wonder if this is the same cord as I have.

Update:

I located the receipt and I purchased this cord from B&H:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/466705-REG/Dot_Line_RS_0435_Off_Camera_TTL_Shoe_Cord.html

Unfortunately, it is no longer available. It looks like this is the replacement:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/524499-REG/Dot_Line_RS_0445_Off_Camera_E_TTL_II_Shoe.html

Unfortunately, it looks like the new cord has a plastic construction similar to the Canon cord.

Bummer.

I will order one of the Adorama cords to see if it is the old style metal construction.

ziggy53

ziggy53 wrote:

...

I will order one of the Adorama cords to see if it is the old style metal construction.

Additional update:

The Adorama cord I linked to earlier is very short,1.64 ft.. I ordered 2 because I may have to "daisy chain" them together to get the length I need for my bracket. This makes the cord system much more expensive than the Canon cord.

I'm not sure I recommend this as a solution.

Art Scott

ziggy53 wrote:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/524499-REG/Dot_Line_RS_0445_Off_Camera_E_TTL_II_Shoe.html

Unfortunately, it looks like the new cord has a plastic construction similar to the Canon cord.

Bummer.

I will order one of the Adorama cords to see if it is the old style metal construction.

I just received one of these DOTLINES from BH myself....it is a solid molded plastic....no screws or joint and the bracket mount end has metal and molded plastic....the camera shoe end has a lever that must be raised to allow the connector to be removed from shoe.....all in all this is the best off camera cable I have seen....so much better than the Nikon SC28 I used to own. of course mine is for KM not canon or Nikon.....but they should all be the same design............
When they say it stretches to 3' they do mean if you pull it and have all of the kinks pullout (very taught)...which is way to much pressure on the ends where the wires enter the connectors as far as I am concerned.....I would say it stretches to maybe 2'10" just to be safe

mt only complaint is that you must have a shoe mount on your bracket as the cable doesnot have a screw hole in the bottom to hard mount it to the bracket.........

Same cord Ziggy pointed to from BH...but a tad chaeper prices at AMAZON

DotLine off camera cable for CAnon...................

claudermilk

Art Scott wrote:

Here is an option that I think would be even better....possibly.........drill out the screw holes and use small bolts with nuts...if the screws go from bottom to top....then the nuts would be visible bit they will hold much better than just longer screws.......or use longer screws and fill the cavity up with silicone adhesive.....this would "glue" it at every spot that was touched by the silicone essentially making it solid and waterproof.

Here I go again...:D No really, this time I'm really being helpful, honest. Art's ide ais a good one. Now taking a further fabrication step. If there's enough meat in the case, perhaps drill out enough to embed the nut & epoxy it in place, then screw into it. That should eliminate any interference problem.

Art Scott

claudermilk wrote:

Here I go again...:D No really, this time I'm really being helpful, honest. Art's ide ais a good one. Now taking a further fabrication step. If there's enough meat in the case, perhaps drill out enough to embed the nut & epoxy it in place, then screw into it. That should eliminate any interference problem.

Chris ya made me start thinking again about this........:D

Also some of the hardware stores like Ace or even an electronics store like....Radio Shack might have the same huts in a very thin model.....have seen them in the past when I need holding power but also was cramped for space.....

Manfr3d

I just bought a set of epoxy tubes. My plan is to warm the glue with a dryer
and let it flow into the part with the broken threads until it is filled. Then once
it is hard, I will predrill some holes into the glue for the screws.
If thats still not good enough I'm going to fill the half as well and glue them
together for all eternity.

NeilL

Manfr3d wrote:

glue them
together for all eternity.

You mean forever

Oh, yes, of course you do... eternity... forever...right...

Neil

ziggy53

ziggy53 wrote:

Additional update:

The Adorama cord I linked to earlier is very short,1.64 ft.. I ordered 2 because I may have to "daisy chain" them together to get the length I need for my bracket. This makes the cord system much more expensive than the Canon cord.

I'm not sure I recommend this as a solution.

I got the cords from Adorama and they are indeed a very solid aluminum foot like the previous one I got from B&H. The new cord is "very" short and, like the older one, has little strain relief.

Using this cord with the bracket I have will probably require both cords to keep the strain to a minimum.

With both new cords daisy-chained together I tested all functions of Canon E-TTL II and everything seems fine. The latch mechanism is slightly improved over the B&H version.

Compared with the genuine Canon cord I do like the solid build of the Adorama cord and I do think it would hold up better than the plastic construction of the Canon cord. The short length and poor strain relief of the Adorama cord are a concern so neither is perfect.

I will continue to use the B&H cord as primary on my primary bracket. I will replace it with the 2 Adorama cords when/if it fails. I will keep the Canon off-camera cord on my backup bracket and just be careful using it.

Manfr3d

Finally found time to repair the cable with expoxy glue.

I warmed the glue with a hair dryer and pured into the
two halves of the cable's housing.

But that information seems worthless without pics, right?

1. Ready ...

2. Set ...

3. Go!

4. Puring the warm glue into the top half.

5. Dang, already out of glue. Need to make more.

6. In order to fill the other half as well.

7. The nervous moment before the two halves are glued TOGETHER!

8. ...pfew...That was easy enough. Now wipe off any glue that came out.

9. Some more cleaning up and holding the halves together.

10. Thats nice, the glue oozes out of the screw holes! Maybe I should've put them in there too

11. Adding some more heat!

12. The tripod's foot comes in handy. Now I can go to the computer and post these pics


It looks like I won't need any screws in this anymore after all. I can't wait to see when the curing has finished

Manfr3d

It seems that the repair was a success! The cable is quite a bit heavier now
but works like it did before. I'm still undecided if I should drill in new screwholes
into the existing threads. The Epoxy filling should be sufficiently strong, or not?

darkdragon

Manfr3d wrote:

It seems that the repair was a success! The cable is quite a bit heavier now
but works like it did before. I'm still undecided if I should drill in new screwholes
into the existing threads. The Epoxy filling should be sufficiently strong, or not?

It might help, i dont see how it could hurt

Robinivich

Manfr3d wrote:

It seems that the repair was a success! The cable is quite a bit heavier now
but works like it did before. I'm still undecided if I should drill in new screwholes
into the existing threads. The Epoxy filling should be sufficiently strong, or not?

Most epoxies are strong enough that that half of your shoe cord should now be close in strength to the chassis of your camera, if not stronger.

Assuming there were some nice clean, somewhat roughed up surfaces for the epoxy to bond with (and the chemistry of the plastics involved worked out), I'd say drilling holes for screws would weaken it more than strengthen it. Having said that, I'm sure darkdragon is right, it'll make no real difference, I doubt that shoe cord could ever be parted ever again, short of smashing it into a million pieces, which would also be difficult.