Need Help Setting Up Novatron 2140c 1000VR

[DanStar]

I am borrowing this studio light set up from a friend who inherited it from another friend. Somewhere in the hand off the manual was lost so I am sans-manual on this and need some help.

I have two lights set up. The are happily firing happily via a sync cable. However the lights are about 6 f-stops different in intensity according to my trusty sekonic light meter. At an ISO of 100 and shutter speed of 1/125 the flash head with the two switches that allow you to vary the intensity (both at the on position) of the modeling and flash lights is firing at f16, the other with no switches is firing at f22. Both lights are them same distance from the model.

I am guessing that the light without the switches is the key light, the one with the switches the fill. Is that correct? Any way to get the fill light firing at the same intensity of what I think is the key light?

[bondarnes]

Dan, my guess is that you have a kit with a regular head and a minus one stop head. A head with switches contains one or more resistors. When you flip the switches one direction the head fires at full power. When you switch it the other way the power goes to the resistor which sends some of it over to the other head. I have regular heads, minus one stop heads, minus two stop heads, and one that is three way: full, minus one stop, minus two stops.

Flip the switch and both heads should be almost the same f stop at the same distance.

One word of caution. Never use a switched head in the minus position by itself in the pack. It will blow out the resistor. If you need more help call my cell 940-390-2403

[DanStar]

Thanks for the reply and your generous offer of help Don. The head with the switches is a three way head. As I experimented more I found that sometimes the head fired fine and others it fired at -6 f-stops. The key number here is three. I could fire it two times in a row and it would fire fine, the third time it was always -6. Then, when I waited for a few minutes, I could repeat the process with the same results.

So, since there are acutally four heads in the whole kit, I swaped out the apparently defective head for the other three way head. Now it is all working great. I am guessing the flash ring in the head needs to be replaced.

Thanks alot for your generous help on this!

[bondarnes]

Originally Posted by DanStar

Thanks for the reply and your generous offer of help Don. The head with the switches is a three way head. As I experimented more I found that sometimes the head fired fine and others it fired at -6 f-stops. The key number here is three. I could fire it two times in a row and it would fire fine, the third time it was always -6. Then, when I waited for a few minutes, I could repeat the process with the same results.

You might not be waiting enough time between shots for the pack to fully recycle, but that should affect all heads and not just one. Did it do this when the switch was in the null position?

[DanStar]

Yep, sure did. I was keeping my eye on the ready light while firing the flash sequence so I think I took that variable out of the equation. Plus, once I swapped out the light and refired the test sequence everything went well. The problem is definately localized to that one head. Hopefully, it is the easy fix of getting the new flash ring. If there is some electrical component inside the head having an issue then the fix won't be so easy.