Yongnuo 560-IV firing continuously

I have a Yongnuo 560-IV and a Yongnuo 560-TX radio trigger trigger. I have been using it for quite successfully for about a year. Last week while I was at Carnival in Venice, my flash sometimes started firing spontaneously and continuously while I was photographing mask people in St. Mark's Square. Once the non-stop firing started, the only way I could stop it was to turn the flash off. As soon as I turned the flash on again, the firing would begin again. It was totally unpredictable. I would just be standing there, not even taking pictures, and the flash would suddenly start firing non-stop.

When I returned to my apartment, I tried it again, and it worked fine. The next day, I went back out to St. Marks, and the non-stop firing started again. Back to the apartment again, everything was fine .... and so forth. Finally, I just gave up on using the flash. I have returned back to the US now, and the flash is behaving normally.

One more thing --- turning the trigger and the camera off would not stop the flashing. The only thing that would make the flashing stop was to turn off the flash unit itself.

I didn't want to spend a lot of time troubleshooting my flash while I was out in the Square. I was there to take pictures, not to fiddle with a misbehaving flash.

What was going on? There were a *lot* of photographers with a lot of major gear in St. Marks Square. Could I have been getting some kind of interference from someone else's gear? Any other ideas about what would cause this kind of behavior?

Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

If the 560IV was in Rx mode when this happened I suspect you likely encountered some strong RF (Radio Frequency) emissions on the 2.4 GHz frequency band which is what the 560-TX uses for communication. Wireless security devices such as CCTV may have been responsible.

There are been reports of industrial microwave ovens in restaurants interfering with 2.4 GHz flash triggers.

• John

fotowbert said:

If the 560IV was in Rx mode when this happened I suspect you likely encountered some strong RF (Radio Frequency) emissions on the 2.4 GHz frequency band which is what the 560-TX uses for communication. Wireless security devices such as CCTV may have been responsible.

There are been reports of industrial microwave ovens in restaurants interfering with 2.4 GHz flash triggers.

Click to expand...

Thank you so much, John. What you say makes perfect sense. Yes, the 560IV was in RX mode when this happened.

I was really disappointed because I had worked really hard before the trip to improve my skills. When the flash was working normally, I was happy with what I was getting. And when the continuous firing started ... there was nothing I could do.

kaphinga said:

fotowbert said:

If the 560IV was in Rx mode when this happened I suspect you likely encountered some strong RF (Radio Frequency) emissions on the 2.4 GHz frequency band which is what the 560-TX uses for communication. Wireless security devices such as CCTV may have been responsible.

There are been reports of industrial microwave ovens in restaurants interfering with 2.4 GHz flash triggers.

Click to expand...

Thank you so much, John. What you say makes perfect sense. Yes, the 560IV was in RX mode when this happened.

I was really disappointed because I had worked really hard before the trip to improve my skills. When the flash was working normally, I was happy with what I was getting. And when the continuous firing started ... there was nothing I could do.

Click to expand...

I've seen at least one report where the photographer changed channels and found one that didn't seem to be affected by the interference in the restaurant. The issue there was the triggers refused to fire, not continuous triggering like you encountered.

Next time you are in Venice you could that.

• John

fotowbert said:

kaphinga said:

fotowbert said:

If the 560IV was in Rx mode when this happened I suspect you likely encountered some strong RF (Radio Frequency) emissions on the 2.4 GHz frequency band which is what the 560-TX uses for communication. Wireless security devices such as CCTV may have been responsible.

There are been reports of industrial microwave ovens in restaurants interfering with 2.4 GHz flash triggers.

Click to expand...

Thank you so much, John. What you say makes perfect sense. Yes, the 560IV was in RX mode when this happened.

I was really disappointed because I had worked really hard before the trip to improve my skills. When the flash was working normally, I was happy with what I was getting. And when the continuous firing started ... there was nothing I could do.

Click to expand...

I've seen at least one report where the photographer changed channels and found one that didn't seem to be affected by the interference in the restaurant. The issue there was the triggers refused to fire, not continuous triggering like you encountered.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestion. I did think about changing channels, but it was so disconcerting when the flash all of the sudden started behaving as if were possessed by evil spirits that I just went into panic mode. It's difficult to concentrate when the flash is firing spontaneously several times a second in front of hundreds of other photographers.

fotowbert said:

Next time you are in Venice you could that.

Click to expand...

That might be a while ...

kaphinga said:

It's difficult to concentrate when the flash is firing spontaneously several times a second in front of hundreds of other photographers.

Click to expand...

I think it could be much easier than interference from restaurants equipment.

There probably was another photographer (or several of them) using similar equipment. And your flash was triggered by somebody's else controller since you were on the same channel. Or even maybe someone played a little trick on you ;-)

John's idea of RF interference is probably correct but I have had a similar problem with my RF-602s when the battery in the receiver was weak. Take one shot and the strobe just kept firing as fast as it could recharge enough to fire. A change of batteries fixed the problem.

Sailor Blue said:

John's idea of RF interference is probably correct but I have had a similar problem with my RF-602s when the battery in the receiver was weak. Take one shot and the strobe just kept firing as fast as it could recharge enough to fire. A change of batteries fixed the problem.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. I am pretty certain that I had fresh batteries -- at least in the flash. I recharged them every night. Maybe not so much in the transmitter. But the problem occurred even when the transmitter was turned off, and so I am not inclined to blame the transmitter.

You didn't accidentally hit the DoF preview button, did you? I did that once with a 580EX, and scared the bejeezus out of myself as the flash went into "modeling light" mode and was very rapidly continuously firing like crazy.

kli said:

You didn't accidentally hit the DoF preview button, did you? I did that once with a 580EX, and scared the bejeezus out of myself as the flash went into "modeling light" mode and was very rapidly continuously firing like crazy.

Click to expand...

I don't think I hit the DoF preview button, but who knows? It was a fairly chaotic shooting situation, made all the more chaotic when the flash started firing continuously. I will check that and see if I can reproduce it. "Modeling light" mode .... hmmmm...