Nice instructions. What drew me to it is that I have the EXACT same flash and the EXACT same multitester. It looks like the video was made on my workbench :-) Thanks!
Thank-you! I have two ancient 283 and heard about the high voltage thing. I've only used them with my DSLR on slave units. Just tested both, and they are the low voltage ones. No fears, but now I have multiple Canon 600EX/RT speedlites. Not sure the 283 units will get used much, but thank-you for providing this simple test. Now I know. Always did love the accessories Vivitar made for the 283. Might just find the use. cheers
@luciam3 It's been a while, but I picked up a few of the 283s to play with. As I recall, some of the 283s use a high control voltage (that could damage cameras not made to handle that high of a voltage) and some are low voltage units and, so, safe to use with any camera. It's a good idea to check to be sure you have a 283 that is low voltage *BEFORE* you put it on your camera. I bought some cheap slave triggers and use them as auxiliary flashes....but measured just in case I got stuck one day.
My research shows that there are two types of 283s, those made in Japan such as mine which records voltages in excess of 200v and those made in China and I suspect that this test was done on the latter.
Thanks for the video. I tested my flash and I am not sure if my flash is safe to use or not in my canon 5d (classic). The reading from the multimeter were 140ish volts at 500v scale, 40v at 150v scale and 5v at 15v scale. I am confuse. Shouldn’t the voltage be consistent regardless the scale I am using for the multimeter?
Sounds like you are using a cheap analog meter. Your three readings are all about 1/3 full scale. The meter has a relatively low resistance (a bad thing) and is dragging down the voltage of the flash unit, and drawing off the same amount of current whatever the scale. Anyway, you have a high voltage flash unit.
Improper measurement! According to page 4 of service manual ( www.manualslib.com/manual/852485/Vivitar-283.html?page=4#manual ) there have to be something around 300V on the trigger input, but fed through R11 - 2MΩ resistor (with D5, D7 and R17 - 18kΩ in series). Your multimeter is something pretty old without preamplifier, so the input resistance of your voltmeter is near 1kΩ/V(range), so on a 25V range somewhere near 25kΩ, which in fact means, that you are measuring something around 1:100 of the real voltage ( (2MΩ+18kΩ+25kΩ)/25kΩ voltage divider ), which is something near 3V, which sounds safe, but is not, because the real voltage is much much higher, because the sync output of typical camera have bigger output resistance than 25kΩ your multimeter have. Theese measurements have to be done using voltmeter with >10MΩ input resistance to obtain a proper results. And this is the voltage part only, what about the switching current, hm?
Good stuff, but the box @0:18 claims the meter is 20 Kohm/volt, so its full scale current in voltage mode is 0.05mA and its resistance in the 25v range is 500 Kohm. This is still much less than the 2 Mohm through which C17 is charged, so his crappy meter is pulling the voltage down.
Early Vivitar 238 flash units used a high trigger voltage. In late production the voltage was lowered to a safe level. If you buy a vivitar 283 and don't test it before using it on a digital camera, good luck! Your cheap flash may not look like such a bargain when you get the repair bill for your camera..
I have a high voltage version (271V) tried it on my D700, no issues BUT i only did it about 10 shots before learning the damage I could be doing. No more of that!
Having been at the photo business for 6+ decades, I've learned most everything the hard way. In this case, what I learned is to spend 30-40 bucks on eBay and buy a Wein safe sync adapter that turns
Everything I've read on the Internet indicates that it isn't necessary to pop the flash to measure the trigger voltage. All the write-ups I've seen on the Internet about measuring trigger voltage matches what I described in my video -- simply measuring the voltage across the two poles while the flash is turned on. For discussions of the technique, search Google for "measuring flash trigger voltage.
It is a good idea to measure it after two or three flashes. If the unit is not used frequently, the main capacitor need a bit of excercise to be conditioned. Otherwise it leaks some of its charge to earth and so the voltage does not reach the full value.
I would have thought that with a flash duration of maybe 1/200 seconds or less, the inertia of an analogue meter needle is not going to get near the actual contact voltage.
It is not measuring the flash tube voltage. It is measuring the voltage on the circuit that is used to trigger the tube. This is a steady voltage until it is grounded by a microswitch in the camera when the shutter starts moving. FWIW, the flash duration is much shorter than 1/200, more like 1/5000 sec.
Jeez, a Micronta multimeter: ~50 years old? My father had one and it's cheap and nasty, with insufficient impedence to measure flash trigger voltage accurately. The trigger voltage is on a capacitor charged via a resistor like a megohm. Your meter will pull it down. It is probably enough to put the unit into the high or low voltage category, but you really need a digital meter. They are quite cheap.
You need a digital meter to measure the voltage on a flash unit properly. Keep that crappy old analog meter for testing batteries. Neverleless, if an analog meter shows a high reading on a flash unit, then the flash unit definitely _does_ have a high voltage, even if you won't know it exactly.
Many are saying that this flashgun is dangerous for modern digital camera? This is nonsense and total lies, I bought one and tried it already on Nikon D40 and it works great!!!
Nice instructions. What drew me to it is that I have the EXACT same flash and the EXACT same multitester. It looks like the video was made on my workbench :-) Thanks!
Thank-you! I have two ancient 283 and heard about the high voltage thing. I've only used them with my DSLR on slave units. Just tested both, and they are the low voltage ones. No fears, but now I have multiple Canon 600EX/RT speedlites. Not sure the 283 units will get used much, but thank-you for providing this simple test. Now I know. Always did love the accessories Vivitar made for the 283. Might just find the use. cheers
@luciam3 It's been a while, but I picked up a few of the 283s to play with. As I recall, some of the 283s use a high control voltage (that could damage cameras not made to handle that high of a voltage) and some are low voltage units and, so, safe to use with any camera. It's a good idea to check to be sure you have a 283 that is low voltage *BEFORE* you put it on your camera. I bought some cheap slave triggers and use them as auxiliary flashes....but measured just in case I got stuck one day.
My research shows that there are two types of 283s, those made in Japan such as mine which records voltages in excess of 200v and those made in China and I suspect that this test was done on the latter.
Thanks for the video. I tested my flash and I am not sure if my flash is safe to use or not in my canon 5d (classic). The reading from the multimeter were 140ish volts at 500v scale, 40v at 150v scale and 5v at 15v scale. I am confuse. Shouldn’t the voltage be consistent regardless the scale I am using for the multimeter?
Sounds like you are using a cheap analog meter. Your three readings are all about 1/3 full scale. The meter has a relatively low resistance (a bad thing) and is dragging down the voltage of the flash unit, and drawing off the same amount of current whatever the scale. Anyway, you have a high voltage flash unit.
Improper measurement! According to page 4 of service manual ( www.manualslib.com/manual/852485/Vivitar-283.html?page=4#manual ) there have to be something around 300V on the trigger input, but fed through R11 - 2MΩ resistor (with D5, D7 and R17 - 18kΩ in series). Your multimeter is something pretty old without preamplifier, so the input resistance of your voltmeter is near 1kΩ/V(range), so on a 25V range somewhere near 25kΩ, which in fact means, that you are measuring something around 1:100 of the real voltage ( (2MΩ+18kΩ+25kΩ)/25kΩ voltage divider ), which is something near 3V, which sounds safe, but is not, because the real voltage is much much higher, because the sync output of typical camera have bigger output resistance than 25kΩ your multimeter have. Theese measurements have to be done using voltmeter with >10MΩ input resistance to obtain a proper results.
And this is the voltage part only, what about the switching current, hm?
Trigger voltage is 230V approx. www.manualslib.com/manual/852485/Vivitar-283.html?page=39#manual
Good stuff, but the box @0:18 claims the meter is 20 Kohm/volt, so its full scale current in voltage mode is 0.05mA and its resistance in the 25v range is 500 Kohm. This is still much less than the 2 Mohm through which C17 is charged, so his crappy meter is pulling the voltage down.
I just got given a MINT 283 -- 'Made in Japan -- the book is dated 1978 -- i have NO Voltage Gadget -- do you think it is the HIGH VOLTAGE ONE ?
Peter, if it was made in Japan rather than China or Korea, then the chances are good
that you have a high-voltage version.
My voltage fluctuates rapidly between 50-190V. Can anyone tell why? The flash I tested was a National PE-2850.
Glad it was useful, John! Thanks for letting me know. --Greg
You're welcome! I'm glad you found it helpful. --Greg
Early Vivitar 238 flash units used a high trigger voltage. In late production the voltage was lowered to a safe level. If you buy a vivitar 283 and don't test it before using it on a digital camera, good luck! Your cheap flash may not look like such a bargain when you get the repair bill for your camera..
I have a high voltage version (271V) tried it on my D700, no issues BUT i only did it about 10 shots before learning the damage I could be doing. No more of that!
Mine is reading 271V. Before I even knew this, I already played with this flash on my D700 :( But the camera and other flashes still work! WEW!
Having been at the photo business for 6+ decades, I've learned most everything the hard way. In this case, what I learned is to spend 30-40 bucks on eBay and buy a Wein safe sync adapter that turns
Yes, the voltage reading should be consistent regardless of the scale.
Everything I've read on the Internet indicates that it isn't necessary to pop the flash to measure the trigger voltage. All the write-ups I've seen on the Internet about measuring trigger voltage matches what I described in my video -- simply measuring the voltage across the two poles while the flash is turned on. For discussions of the technique, search Google for "measuring flash trigger voltage.
It is a good idea to measure it after two or three flashes. If the unit is not used frequently, the main capacitor need a bit of excercise to be conditioned. Otherwise it leaks some of its charge to earth and so the voltage does not reach the full value.
I've used this flash with my Nikon D200 for several years, with nothing bad happening to the camera. --Greg
I would have thought that with a flash duration of maybe 1/200 seconds or less, the inertia of an analogue meter needle is not going to get near the actual contact voltage.
It is not measuring the flash tube voltage. It is measuring the voltage on the circuit that is used to trigger the tube. This is a steady voltage until it is grounded by a microswitch in the camera when the shutter starts moving. FWIW, the flash duration is much shorter than 1/200, more like 1/5000 sec.
Thanks. Nice job.
Thank you very much for sharing...
It's April 2018 and Radio Shack has been dead as Borders Books and Music since last year. I have a RS Multimeter bought long before the crash.;)
Jeez, a Micronta multimeter: ~50 years old? My father had one and it's cheap and nasty, with insufficient impedence to measure flash trigger voltage accurately. The trigger voltage is on a capacitor charged via a resistor like a megohm. Your meter will pull it down. It is probably enough to put the unit into the high or low voltage category, but you really need a digital meter. They are quite cheap.
Thanks!
You can look for your flash unit's voltage here : www.botzilla.com/photo/strobeVolts.html
You need a digital meter to measure the voltage on a flash unit properly. Keep that crappy old analog meter for testing batteries. Neverleless, if an analog meter shows a high reading on a flash unit, then the flash unit definitely _does_ have a high voltage, even if you won't know it exactly.
Many are saying that this flashgun is dangerous for modern digital camera? This is nonsense and total lies, I bought one and tried it already on Nikon D40 and it works great!!!
Do let us know when you accidentally use an old flash that runs at 200 volts and fries your camera.
Yes, I played Russian Roulette today and I still feel great. So it must be safe.
Thank you.