Canon radio-controlled flashes failing in use - Senders and receivers disconnecting

[mHeston]

Hi,

I am spreading the news about the failure of communication between Canon "Sender" (Master) flashes and Canon "Receiver" (Slave) flashes.  Since around 2020 the communication between Master and Slave flashes can be broken by a public radio wave of some kind.  I’m not an EE, so I can’t tell you what the source of the problem is, but I can tell you that I have tested equipment all over the greater Seattle area, and about 80% of the time the Slaves disconnect from the Master in under 20 minutes of being turned on.   The shortest time to disconnect happens in 60 seconds with most disconnects occuring in 8-12 minutes.  I’ve only tested this in the greater Seattle area, but I suspect that if you are in a major urban area you will experience this failure.

I’ve tested this with Canon 600EX RTs and with a new R3, RL-5, and ST-E10, so it’s happening to the latest Canon equipment. 

You can read about what I’ve tested here: https://hestonphoto.com/info/canon-flash-failure-01.html

[JLCKJC]

I've been looking for a way to preserve some of my Canon flash investment while hoping that Canon will eventually come up with a possible fix for the Wi-Fi issues afflicting their system. After reading the posts of a few other beleaguered users I came upon a thread a few weeks ago that posed a possible but clumsy interim solution.

To try it out, I purchased a Godox X Pro II C trigger and three Godox X1RC receivers for my Canon R5 and my three 600EX II RTs. These Godox models have been specifically modified to work with the Canon system. The trigger goes on the camera of course and the flashes are mounted to the hot shoes of the Godox receivers and put into manual mode. Basically, you are in effect replacing the Canon wireless connection with the Godox connection which communicates between the camera and flashes and controls them in TTL or manual mode. The system also has the ability to transfer an ETTL/TTL exposure to a manual setting if you want to. You have 32 channels and groups A through F as well as user unique codes.

But most importantly, when I played with this system this afternoon where my Canon flashes failed miserably time after time losing the Wi-Fi connection over and over no matter the settings, the Godox system worked flawlessly. I know it's a kludge, but it works and gets me a workable system for about $210; $90 for the trigger, $40 for each receiver (3 in my case).

I hope this information is useful to one or more of you out there as we wait for a response from Canon. If Godox can design a reliable system, surely, you'd think Canon can too.

[mHeston]

I'm glad you found a solution that works for you.  Thank you for Sharing, I'm sure some people will find that helpful.  As for me, I'm not interested in having more things to carry, feed batteries, or that need charging.  Plus this is virtually the same setup I used before the 600EX RTs came out over 15 years ago, except I was using the Pocketwizard version of the Godox transmitters and receivers.  

My hope in posting this is to get Canon to pull their collective heads out of...... and make a system that works.

[BillWayToday]

I'm thinking to use the infrared capability instead of the radio. 

[JLCKJC]

That will usually work if you have line of sight from the transmitters to the flashes and you are indoors. Putting the flashes in modifiers is also crippled. This approach also has limited distance compared to Wi-Fi (if it works!).

Good luck!

[VegasCameraGuy]

I use a Canon R5 with my EL-1 and Godox/Flashpoint flashes and triggers. I've always used the Godox XProC without a problem. My last two shoots were with my new Godox X3 Xnano trigger without a problem. I generally use the Godox AD360ii-C flashes or the EL-1 and have never had a problem as you've described. You might try a third party trigger to see if that is any help or not. If nothing else, it may tell you if its the camera, trigger, or both.