PC Sync Terminal Dead?

[geckophoto]

Has anyone had problems with your PC sync terminal when you plug in your flash cord? Mine has had the strobes not flash at times, I thought due to the cord being loose in the connection, and wiggle/spin it in the socket and it would usually start to work again, (Have tightened the end of the cord numerous times with the little tool too..) and this last week of shooting my strobes wouldn't flash off the cord at all, bought a new cord to test it again and still not flash. (It's not the cords...they work fine when using my flash meter) I heard from someone that the camera terminals get zapped from your power packs or strobes and sometimes make the connection go bad, so HE uses only radio slaves to fire strobes. I guess my S2 is goin back for warranty repair this week....but wondered if this is an ongoing problem?

*Going to buy a radio slave anyways to use in the future to make life easier..anyone have one for sale?

[Tom V]

My Sync Terminal died about a year ago. I use a radio sync system now (and like it), or a Nikon AS-16 (hot shoe to PC adapter). The failure in my camera was caused by the terminal unscrewing when the cap was unscrewed.

See the thead http://www.s2pro.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=609

Do a serch on "terminal" and you will find more threads about this relatively rare problem.

[geckophoto]

The cord terminal was loose..screwed it back in a little bit..flashed a few times..then failed.

Called Fuji, goin back for repair.

Bored so I 'unscrewed' the terminal all the way to peek inside because inquiring minds want to know....

What do you see? A little RED wire with no terminal soldered to it....duh....

Design flaw in my opinion. When you unscrew the terminal CAP the first time, you can potentially UNSCREW the terminal itself, thus causing the soldered contact wire on the back side to spin/break off the terminal itself. That is what happens when the terminal is LOOSE and gets play in it when you attatch the pc sync cord numerous times. I found out also that when that does not work, the hot shoe on my camera also doesn't fire the other 'bypass' method I used to slave off my studio lights. SO I had to rely now on the built in flash, using my batteries. Perhaps the hot shoe/pc terminal are in series and now both dont work for me.

SO WHEN I SEND THE CAMERA BACK FOR WARRANTY REPAIR, I'm going to point this out and ask them to put some LOC TIGHT or even glue in the terminal itself so it CAN'T be unsccrewed by accident. There is NO need to unscrew the terminal unless you are building the camera. IF YOU UNSCREW IT, YOU WILL BREAK THE CONTACT/soldered wire to it AND IT WON'T FIRE OFF THE STROBES. A soldered connection on the back of some device that screws in and out will eventually lead to it being broken/spun off the sodlered point. Thus my sync terminal problem...

SO I RECOMMEND TO ANYONE, DON'T MESS WITH THE TERMINAL, KEEP IT SCREWED IN TIGHT WHEN YOU GET YOUR CAMERA AND BE CAREFUL TO UNSCREW THE CAP THE FIRST TIME AND NOT PUT IT BACK IN TO PREVENT FURTHER LOOSENING OF THE PC TERMINAL ITSELF.

An easy fix but 7-10 days of digital down time for me now...at least it's under warranty. :-) Back to shooting film if needed for a few day I guess....LOL!