- Illustrator generated power gauge, red = high, blue = low
This photo was taken on January 26, 2007 using a Nikon D70s.
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. Az (65 months ago | reply)
that is great, I have two vp1's but cannot find any more anywhere.
kreego (65 months ago | reply)
Interesting. Do you have a continuous range of power adjust, or is it stepped?
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Seen on your photo stream. (?)
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Seen on your photo stream. (?)
metropolicity (65 months ago | reply)
it's continuous..but with the marks it's somewhat stepped. For 3 bucks, it's pretty darn good
Andy Brooks added this photo to his favorites. (65 months ago)
MarcGrandmaison.com (65 months ago | reply)
Could this be done with a 285 HV also? and do you have steps on how to do this and where you go the parts?
Marc
metropolicity (65 months ago | reply)
Marc
I am not sure. Doesn't the 285 HV have a stepped power thing already?
All i know is if there is a similar plug in the front of the 285, I am pretty sure it'll work. It can't hurt to try, it is only about 3 bucks for the parts. The rest is up to you.
The part is a 100k Linear Taper Potentiometer. (audio or not) from Radio Shack. Basically there are 3 pins on the Pot. you have to connect the middle one and either the left or right pin, but not all three. Those wires/contacts need to go into the right side pin hole (with the flash facing you) and the left side pin holes need to be connected with a small peice of wire.
I took apart the original sensor housing and wired it up inside of it so i can have a nice tight connection to the 283.
the housing is made from a small project box, also from Radio Shack, cut in half via a bandsaw and sanded down to make smooth.
I made the flash power gauge in Illustrator and printed it out on photo paper backed with double sided tape.
Play around, there about 10 steps for sure, but i think you can really get it fine tuning since it's a 100k and not a big step one like 50k.
Hope this helps
-Eric
Ken Reppart (65 months ago | reply)
285 HV does have a sensor but they frequently break. This approach should work with the 285 HV, I'm planning on trying it soon. The links below have more info.
www.hiviz.com/activities/guidebook/Activity_0 2.html
www.hiviz.com/faq/faq_flash.htm#7
strobist added this photo to his favorites. (65 months ago)
metropolicity (65 months ago | reply)
wow, that's exactly what I did.
I hope your experiments are successful!
I am guessing any sized Pot will do, but it HAS to be a 100k, I've tried other ones and the steps are too big or not enough. I guess through my own testing, I could of researched online.
Where's the fun in that?
-Eric
MarcGrandmaison.com (65 months ago | reply)
Hah ! thanks for the info Eric, I though this hack would give you more control over the power output... at the time I wasn't aware the 283 didn't have this.. I'm still new to all this old gear :)
Ken Reppart (65 months ago | reply)
i tried it and it does with the 285 as well. it's different pins though, see teh hiviz.com link i posted above.
Fokke van Saane (65 months ago | reply)
I tried it to my Unomat cheapo flash. It works! I desoldered the photocel and replaced it (after trial and error) for a 50K pot. Approx 5 stops range! Now see if i can put it together elegantly...
metropolicity (65 months ago | reply)
thats great!
Maybe I've started a revolution of older flashes that need some lovin'.
Congrats!
-Eric
Fokke van Saane (65 months ago | reply)
Today i succeeded in putting it together just by glueing a 50K trimpot to the front. As i am new to flicker, i will put a link here, later i might upload it more "flicker style". :-)
www.xs4all.nl/~fokkie/fotografie/DIY_flitsers /regelbarech...
Fang Liang added this photo to their favorites. (63 months ago)
plasticpuppet.com (56 months ago | reply)
Hey, so I want to thank you for posting this, because now my Vivitar283s are fun to use again. While the auto-thystor I'm sure works great for some people the lack or precise control for me was more or less testing my patience.
But I have a couple questions:
On the one I built I get minimum power for at least 1/6 of the way around, basically no power increase whatsoever. Then suddenly I get HUGE power increases with very little turning of the knob. Like what seems to be 2 or 3 stop increase. Did you ever run across this when you were doing your initial tests? And if so what was the resolution?
Is this why on your power scale you have a white area? Or if I got the wrong pot (or a faulty one)? Or maybe the gage of wire I'm using is too large? I'm of course trying to work through this myself, but if you have any ideas it would be of some help.
I built mine using the following materials from what used to be radioshack (the call it 'the source by circuit city' here now):
Alpha B100K Pot
18 Gage Speaker Wire (about 2" worth)
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Silver Image (53 months ago | reply)
Probably a tapered pot, rather than a linear one.
iamunique127, geowulf, Stephen Geddes, and abdul10000 added this photo to their favorites.
Matt Shumate (38 months ago | reply)
Thanks for this. I just made 2 tonight for both of my 283s. They work great and I'm so excited (even though the don't look quite as nice as yours).
metropolicity (38 months ago | reply)
Your welcome.
I hope you get everything out of these powerful suckers.
seboleman (36 months ago | reply)
Great project. I would like to finish mine off with the power gauge. Any chance you would be willing to upload a jpg of yours? Thanks in advance.
metropolicity (36 months ago | reply)
I lost that jpeg LONG ago.
Got any skills in photoshop? It's pretty easy to make.
better yet, make it illustrator :)
mhjerde, mekongaroo, and brent_hawke added this photo to their favorites.
brent_hawke (30 months ago | reply)
Thanks for posting this man I just made two of these and they work great. Much appreciated.
dandrphoto (30 months ago | reply)
Thanks for the brilliant idea and the great pictures. But, hey, I have a question.
The guts of the sensor that make this up - do you have it dialed to a setting, like blue, yellow, red or M? Or doesn't this matter?
metropolicity (30 months ago | reply)
I don't understand what you mean?
The colours were just used as a measure of brightness, red - high, blue - low.
dandrphoto (30 months ago | reply)
I took everything apart and answered my own question (above).
I take it the sensor from the 283 is pretty much inserted in the box as a unit and secured to the box with a screw. Do you drill tiny holes in the casing to feed the wires to the potentiometer?
Thank you for answering my inane questions.
dandrphoto (30 months ago | reply)
Does it matter which of the two wires gets connected to the middle contact on the potentiometer? Also, the two pins that are supposed to be shorted, aren't they already or do you have to run an additional wire?
I hooked everything up and plugged it in, but the flash refuses to flash.
Thanks!
Obi-Wan-YJ (29 months ago | reply)
Thanks for posting this. Your photos were an inspiration for me to perform this mod on my "new" 283. I managed to retain the auto power functionality while adding manual control in a package similar to yours, and it's reversible with just a little bit of soldering, in case I ever change my mind.
www.jedi.com/obiwan/photo/vivitar283.html
patricklarson.com and Billy Wilson Photography added this photo to their favorites.
michaelholdren (26 months ago | reply)
Hmmm... I'm having trouble finding decent 250k pots around town (no online ordering for me, I need instant gratification), but I have found 500k pots. They seem to work, but I don't have access to a flash meter so I can't attest to the output although - to the naked eye - it seems to be varied at least. Any reason I shouldn't be doing this?
Obi-Wan-YJ (26 months ago | reply)
Michael, you'll lose resolution at the small end of your pot, which is where you need it most. I got around this by using a 100K pot (which is about 0.75-stop down) and then coupling that with a little switch to go between "full" and "dial-controlled power reduction." This gives me much better resolution at the low end. See my link in the post right above yours.
michaelholdren (26 months ago | reply)
Obi - I did follow your link and was very impressed with how thoroughly your process was documented. Probably the best I've seen online in the last 2 weeks I've been doing research. When you're talking about "low end" are you referring to when the flash would be at it's highest settings, or lowest?
Obi-Wan-YJ (26 months ago | reply)
The lowest flash power, which also corresponds to the lowest resistance values for the pot. If you used a 500K pot, the settings for 4 stops down and 7 stops down would be so close to each other that you really couldn't control the power in that range. By using a 100K pot, it stretches out that range to a usable size, at the expense of not allowing you to give the flash full power through the pot -- which is why you need a toggle switch to choose between full power and "reduced via the pot".
Email me direct if you have more questions. Address is at the bottom of my web page above.
michaelholdren added this photo to his favorites. (26 months ago)
metropolicity (26 months ago | reply)
whoa. i leave my account for 5 days and this happens.
happy hacking everyone!
michaelholdren (26 months ago | reply)
Thanks Eric!
Obi: I'll get a flash meter and see if I can pinpoint the range for each stop and see how consistent I can get it - with both a 100k pot and a 500k pot. I'll email you with further, more in-depth, questions.
zphaze and JeffJamesPhoto added this photo to their favorites.
Peter Mars Photo (7 months ago | reply)
Here's what I did.... works great! I now have 8 of them, I use them all day long. I'm a real estate photographer. 500K audio taper with 2K wired across to set minimum resistance, which creates 128th at low end. Jack on each side is for sync w/RF-602 or Sonia Optical slaves from FlashZebra. Dial scale was flash meter tested, marked in pencil, and then created in lllustrator so it's pretty accurate. Love these... much easier to use than my 580ex II's and only a tad less powerful!
metropolicity (7 months ago | reply)
EXCELLENT WORK!
I have long since sold and given up my 283s in favor of SB800s and 900s.
Where did you find the couplers?
Obi-Wan-YJ (7 months ago | reply)
Peter, thanks for posting that. I've got another 283 that needs this mod, and I was thinking of doing something different than before.