TTL flash

H

haunteddoc

Member
In my quest for cheap equipment, I previously took the wire from a Cactus wireless remote and modified the cord that came with it by adding household plugs to each end so I could extend the wired range by using an extension cord. That being done and the fact that this did not give me any TTL functionality, I bought an inexpensive sync cord from China and cut it's cord in half. I then went to the local hardware store, the type that has everything you could ever think of, and got a couple of female RJ-45. I then added these to each end of the cut cord. I don't have and RJ-45 crimping tool so I had to find another alternative. I found the answer by using the female RJ-45 connectors that you use for wall mounted ethernet ports. These were wired by simply pushing each wire into a slot just like you do with when connecting telephone wires to terminals. The first attempt didn't work at all but by going back and resetting the wires it now works like a champ. So I can now use my flash off camera with all the TTL functions by using an ethernet cord. I'll sent pics of each setup in another email.

Before cutting the cord I did use a volt meter to draw a diagram of how the cord was wired, probably unnecessary since you are just going to reconnect the white wire to the other white wire etc, but I thought it better to be a little OCD about this. After I got everything connected, I again used the volt meter to make sure the wiring was correct, maybe it wasn't such a bad idea to map things out before cutting the cord. Anyway, everything works great and my biggest fear of frying my flash or camera are gone.

As a disclaimer, these modifications are not my ideas. I read about them somewhere on the Internet, I think it was on "The Strobist."
 
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Here is a pic of the final products

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Good to hear that it works well. I've seen the extension cord modification on Strobist, but I must have missed the ethernet cord version.
 
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Any idea what the maximum length is that this will still work? Seems like Canon only sells short cables, unless I'm not seeing different length options.
 
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I had a 50 foot ethernet cable connected to it and it worked fine. Not sure what the maximum length would be but sure there is a limit.
 
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Thanks. ; I got the female ethernet jacks at Home Depot and they worked the best of others that I tried like taking them the wall plates I found at the local hardware store. ; Now on to trying to figure out how to build a wireless flash trigger.
 
Thanks for the link. ; Just what I was looking for. ; I'm not really good at building electronic stuff although I was and electronic tech in the service. ; But, back then we were still using vacuum tubes. ; Diodes and copper circuit boards were just coming into use.

Should be fun to try and build this. ;
 
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