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Enclosure #3

A project log for Wireless ETTL flash conversion

Convert a vintage flash to wireless with full ETTL

lion-mclionheadlion mclionhead 12/17/2022 at 23:580 Comments

After 1 week of prototypes, nothing converged on a good design.  Interfacing with a commercial part, the need for 2 mirror images, & filament deposition limitations made this one particularly difficult.  There was a slow trend towards better designs.  1 idea was to try to make the flash & camera side as common as possible.

Flying leads above & below the mane board were arguably working out better than all the leads below the mane board.  The battery was more accessible with flying leads above & below the mane board.  There was more room if the mane board was between the switches & battery.

The battery requires a splitter to go to the charger & mane board.

The flash enclosure had to be wider just to have enough room to install farsteners from above.  The bottom has to be flat to sit on a tripod.  Electronicals in the flash enclosure went above the switches to leave enough room for the tripod screw.  The flying leads have to go up to the flash & down to the switches.  The height of the flash enclosure was dictated by the height of the m1.5 farsteners.  Those are irreplaceable so there's no desire to shorten them.

Meanwhile, the camera enclosure has to be narrow, with farsteners installed from above.  The board in that one went above the switches, which entailed passing all the wires from the camera & passing the mane board between the switches during the assembly.  It was not as easy as having the mane board between the switches & camera.

A lot of effort went into keeping the original Pixel parts unchanged.  Destiny has the original farsteners getting stripped & the original Pixel parts having to be modified to accept m2.6's.  This will involve drilling new holes & inserting a single big farstener from above the flash enclosure & below the camera enclosure into a single PLA standoff.  They won't be as secure as the 4 stock farsteners, but the good news is they'll get a lot more compact.

There's still a mountain of software to write for configuring the frequency.  Exposure is still way off.  The battery leads need some rework to make them stronger.  The camera enclosure may get another redesign to move the board below the switches.  The flash enclosure seems acceptable.

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