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

[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.