430EX II Mod

ATTENTION: You will void your warranty, may ruin your flash, and you run the risk of electric shock/electrocution by doing this mod. By following the guide below, you do so at your own risk.



Modded my 3 week old 430EX II yesterday. Its actually easy and there's plenty of room to put the 3.5mm socket. There's very little room in the foot compartment,  so after a few fiddling around, I managed to find a sweet spot to put the socket. Its on the left  side upper corner of the flash' body - flash facing you.

The most difficult task in doing the mod is disassembly. It's not really that difficult, but just because of a little clip on one side of the flash, its almost impossible not to break it. Its very well hidden (thank you Canon engineers) that I never expected it to be there at all.

First thing to do is remove the 4 screws of the flash's foot. You will see colorful wires attached from the shoe to the bottom PCB of the flash. They are attached by micro or nano connectors (whatever they are called) just gently pull from the base of the connector to disconnect, now the shoe is completely free. Be very careful as there are two loose springs that can jump off (see pics below). Twist the flash head up and turn 90 degrees, you will see 4 screws where the markings in degrees are. Do you see them? You only need to remove the screws holding the front part of the body (where the AF assist beam is attached). Now everything will be loose and here comes the difficult part... The pic below shows where the nasty bit of platic and metal are located. Just imagine how they are clipped together and do your magic.

Above: Pink arrow shows the bracket mount - who uses this mount? It could have been more useful if they put a sync port or just left the space for modding.

Green arrow shows the nasty retaining metal clip. Blue arrow is where the broken little plastic bit resides, easily fixed with araldite adhesive. The plastic bit is actually a hook.

Now front plate is removed, you can start making the hole for the 3.5mm socket. Here's a pic of my drilled front plate:

You can actually drill a bit higher which is a better position so you don't have to shave a bit off the 3.5mm socket later on. Why? Because I found out that the socket slightly touches part of the flash's PCB.

Before mounting the socket, its better to solder 2 pieces of wires first. Positive end of the socket connects to the positive terminal of the flash's shoe, and negative end of the socket to the negative terminal of the shoe.

Let's look at more pics:

Above: Showing the innards of the 430EX II flash and a little illustration to show you where the 3.5mm socket and wires will be.

X = is where the hole is drilled for the socket. Y = is where its housed. Blue lines show where the 2 wires will be sitting.

Above: The finished product. To make it easier to solder the 2 wires to the shoe's terminals, you need to disassemble the foot. It breaks down in three parts and you only need to undo 4 screws (look at pics below). Green arrows show Positive to positive terminals, Blue arrows - negative terminals, Pink arrows show the hardened araldite adhesive I used to fix the wires and the socket for added stability.

Above shows the flash's foot. I have already removed the base plate by undoing 4 screws (see picture of base plate below). Red arrow shows the spring of the locking pin, Blue arrow shows the locking mechanism and inside it hides a small little tiny minute spring. The locking mechanism just sits on top of the foot, sorry forgot to take pic of it.

Green arrow points to the possitive terminal connected to a white cable (connect the positive terminal from the socket here) , and Pink arrow is an alternative  and better place to connect the negative terminal from the socket.

Above pic shows the shoe base. Blue arrows show where the first four screws (beginning) were removed. Red arrows show where I removed the four screws that hold the foot (previous pic).

And now presenting the star of the day!

The RF-602 trigger which I use now has a hotshoe and a wake up facility that actually works when my 430EX II snoozes. Though IMHO its well built, I still wouldn't trust it. How about the wake up function which is disabled when using just the cable to trigger your flash? I don't really need wake up function as I leave my flash on all the time when I'm using it. It's also reported that wake up function doesn't always work on some flashes like SB800.

Some quick test shots using RF-602 with cable:

Test video with machine gun mode

Yongnuo RF-602 Review

I just received my new Yongnuo RF-602 Flash/Camera Trigger today.
First set came with 1 Transmitter, 1 Receiver, and 2 cables, one for triggering the camera and another for triggering studio strobes which can also be used for triggering any flash that accepts 3.5mm jack using the supplied 6.35mm to 2.5mm adapter. The 2 extra receivers came with their own boxes with no cables included.

The Transmitter has a metal shoe that looks like  my 580EX II and 430EX II's. It has 5 contacts though I'm not sure if they are all active. The PC sync port is a screw-lock type. The push button has two steps, half press and full press. Battery door is better and easily accessible which is located at the back of the transmitter and uses CR2 battery. It has no On/Off switch. Underneath the transmitter lies the 4 channel selector.

The Receiver has a metal hotshoe mount, the back has a proprietary port for connecting both included cables for camera and flash triggering. At the bottom of the receiver lies a plastic foot which has 1/4" screw mount and allows mounting on a flash stand or tripod. This receiver uses x2 AAA batteries and can be easily accessed by sliding the battery cover. On/Off switch and 4-channel selector are both at the top of the receiver.

First impression - WOW! Both Transmitter and all Receivers look well built. They feel solid to the touch, and no misaligned gaps/joints, battery compartments are secure and tight not like the Cactus V2s.

Flaws - as seen in the pictures below, the on/off switch on the receiver can be obstructed by the mounted flash. As a result, one has to unmount the flash to switch the receiver on or off. They should have moved the switch further at the front or swapped places where the word "Yongnuo"  is. . The receiver's foot should also have a lock so it won't slip off when mounted on another hot shoe or cold shoe or flash stand.

The Transmitter's battery door is not removable, instead its retained by two little plastic recess on each side of the door on one end. This is a fragile part of the Transmitter. The door should have been made fully removable just like the one on the Receiver.

As mentioned earlier, the set came with a Receiver to strobe cord which is 6.35mm I think with a 6.35mm to 3.5mm reducer. It should have been the other way around. And I can't find any cord with a direct 3.5mm jack. I'm stuck with the cumbersome cord with reducer to use with my modded flash. This is also why I hate the proprietary yongnuo connector. If they used stereo jack, it would be easier to DIY. It's all about money ey! I wouldn't mind paying a few more quid if they used stereo jack.

To me, these are just minor shortcomings of the RF-602 considering its price tag. And as long as it syncs to my camera's maximum flash sync speed (non HSS of course) which was not possible with my then sold Cactus V2s, maintain long triggering range (shame on you PW Flex!!!), and hopefully doesn't go kaput after a few months as some people report, I'm very much content with my purchase.

Above: 430EX II mounted on RF-602 Receiver

Above: 580EX II mounted on RF-602 Receiver

Above: RF-602 Receiver mounted on flash stand

Tests with my 580EX II, 430EX II, (battered) Sigma 500 DG Super, and Yongnuo YN462. They all fire and am happy to say, I can get the maximum advertised triggering speed of 1/250s  on a Canon 50D without banding !!! I've never experienced any misfiring or missed fire with the 100+ shots I took. Wake up function also works with both 580EX II and 430EX II.

Testing my 580EX II mounted on the receiver's hotshoe, I can trigger it as far as 150 paces. With my 430EX II, I can go as far as 200+ paces - I've ran out of space. When I try to trigger them together, they both fire upto 150 paces, when I exceed that, the 430EX II won't fire. That's weird isn't it? It should be the 580EX II that shouldn't fire. What's even weird is when I try to trigger my 500DG Super with any of my Canon flashes, it fires but it's out of sync - it fires late (and I've already swapped the receivers around just to make sure one of them's not the culprit). But when I trigger it on its own, its ok and I can go as far as 200 paces. Another weird behaviour of my 500DG Super when used with RF-602 receiver is it fires just like when set to stroboscopic mode when I use slow shutter speed.

So far I'm happy with my new set! Comparing it with my then modded Cactus V2s, the new RF-602 is an upgrade in every respect!

Above:  my battered 500DG Super with the RF-602 receiver using the included cable...

Above: my 50D's "self portrait" with RF-602 receiver as shutter trigger

Above 50D with 580EX II at 1/250sec (highest sync speed). Below is at 1/320sec.

Here's a short video showing wake up function and why Yongnuo should have added a shoe lock.

And another with Transmitter mounted on camera

Machine gun mode