Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Best flash mod yet

Okay, I found a couple more camera flashes. Here are my latest modifications.

The first one is an Achiever EZ 250. I did two mods to this one. I clipped the wires off of the light sensor and attached them to a potentiometer for adjustable output. I wanted it to look a little more refined than the last one, so I took the lid from one of my 9 month old's juice bottles, and drilled a whole into the center to cover the potentiometer. Then I spray painted it black. I bought a four pack of knobs for a couple of bucks at Radio Shack, and added one to the potentiometer. I hot glued the potentiometer to the speedlight body.

I drilled a hole into the front of the flash. I ripped a head phone jack from a broken Sony discman (given to me by a friend), and soldered it into the hole. As a result, I am able to fire the flash using Pocket Wizards.

Flash $4.99 at Goodwill
Knobs $.75 ($2.99 for a four pack)
Potentiometer $2.99 (I like the audio taper)
Wire pulled from an old ethernet cord free
lid to a baby bottle free
Broken discman free
Totally adjustible flash for $8.73

The second flash I didn't modify much. It is a Sunpak Auto 411 S. It allows for manual adjustable flash over a five stop range, so I decided to forgo the potentiometer mod. It also had a sync port, but it was tiny. So I removed it, enlarged the hole, and added the bigger 3.5 mm jack. Now I have been able to fire the flash with my pocket wizards. I bought the flash for $5 from a person on craigslist. Then the above mentioned discman actually had two audio jacks, so I used that jack for the new sync port.
Total cost: $5.

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