DIY remote flash triggering

I've been thinking of using a IR repeater meant for making an IR TV remote control aSat/Cable boxin another room. They're simple setups that have an IR receiver that converts the signal to RF sends it to a receiver that repeats the IR signal. I'm not sure if it would work. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that Canon's slaves/masters use a "near IR" signal. Latency could also be an issue. BUT, if this worked you should maintain TTL plus improve the capabilities of the native Canon system.


Any thoughts? Anyone have what they would need for an experiment?

I found this article that could be an interesting project. even if "near IR" knocks normal systems out maybe this could be a jumping off point. Note: That is for wired


Amazon has several ready made options here.

Jarhead, you should dive into this head-first. I'm interested to see what you come up with.

I know it could help allot of peopleand it doesn't seem like it'd be too hard to pull off. Done correctly with small tape on LEDs attached to the receiver on the remote flashes and taped over to block sunlight it seems it would work in direct sunlight. as far off as the wireless repeater would work. I guess it's time to bust out the solder gun.


It'd be nice to find an off the shelf unit that would work without much modification.

If it were that easy, it probably would have already been done. The strobist group on flickr is currently 56,000 strong and growing. There's quite a few electronics nuts in there, as my eyes have glazed over more than once when reading an in-depth thread. I really am interested to see what you can come up with. If you start making progress, I'll certainly buy another Canon unit and help you test the thing. I'd even try my hand at creating some front-end software in case you wanted to make it programmable (however, my Visual Basic skills are relatively limited..but I always seem to learn whatever I need to in order to get the job done...just takes me a good while, though).

Yea, I need to spend more time searching old threads on the strobist group on flickr. I'm not thinking of a gadget to make money, just acheap simple wayto improve the flexability of my current setup.


I'm an Excel nut myself and have been thinking of buying a good book on Visual Basic. Recorded Macros are fairly limited in their application but I've set up some real time savers myself.

Programming shouldn't be a problem - I'm a programmer.

Now, does anybody know how the camera's PC terminal or hot shoe work?

I'm thinking I'll buy one of Canon Speedlite Transmitter ST-E2to one of my 430EXs stuck off in another room. If so I'll proceed, if not I'll regroup and try something different.

I suspect even if the repeaters will work with the light wavelength of "near IR" that latency could make it unusable. I mean we are talking about tiny fractions of a second here. But atforty bucks it might be worth trying as a proof of concept. I'm sure someone could make something that would do what I'm talking about but I don't want to invest much time, money or energyif the concept is flawed.


It's quite likely thatsomeone reading this owns an IR repeater (A devicefor making an IR TV remote control aSat/Cable boxin another room)a Canon master(ST-E2, 550EX, 580EX, or 580EX II)and slave(420EX, 430EX, 430EX II, 550EX, 580EX, or 580EX II)to test this. Anyone???