Synching 40D to 300w Monobloc

[Whisky_Mac]

Just entered the world of light magic. Brought two 300w monbloc flash heads. I can fire one as slave using the 40D on camera flash, the other one seems dead. I can fire the live one synched to the wife's 30D but I cannot fire it synched to the 40D. I get a message telling me the flash is not compatible or is turned off. The other flash will not fire no matter what is done.

Result, one brand new dead flash and one live flash but I can only synch it to the 30D.

Any clues.

[littleblightie]

So the "dead" flash won't even work when plugged straight in? Which is giving you the error, the camera or the monoblock?

[Whisky_Mac]

The monobloc. One works, one does not. Will not fire as a slave or synched up, just dead.

Have worked out the 40Ds problem, it needed the white balance set on flash. I am not sure how this will work if I am using it as fill in flash.

[littleblightie]

The white balance of the 40D shouldn't matter...

As far as the other strobe is concerned, is it brand new or second hand? Have you checked the fuses/bulb?

[hoffy]

Are you trying to use them triggered by the camera in a TTL setup (I.E., the camera is not set to full manual)? Does the dud strobe test fire? Does the strobes have optical triggers? If they have optical triggers and test buttons, if when you fire the first monoblock by hitting the test button, will the second go off?

There could be many things wrong from how you have the camera set to a dud strobe