Speedlite 580EXii display flickers and turns off

[Peter_Bda]

Hi all, my 580EXii display flickers briefly when I switch it on but doesn’t power up. Has anyone else had this issue? It has been finicky recently and required some “assistance”. (Palm smack 🙂 ) to power up and now nada.....

Thoughts or solutions? I am a member of CPS but not sure if it is worth repairing.... advice welcomed!

Peter

[RobertTheFat]

Sounds like a loose connection inside the device. The tipoff is that for a while it responded to being slapped. It could be a relatively simple fix, but I'm not sure that Canon's repair shops even work on the 580EX II anymore. If you don't know a reliable 3rd-party shop, you may have to write it off.

As a last resort and with nothing to lose, you could open it up and see if it's something obvious that you can fix yourself. But be careful, The capacitors in one of those suckers can deliver a painful shock. I doubt that it's enough to electrocute you, but you might wish you'd just thrown it away.

[Peter_Bda]

Soooooo........when threatened with a philips screw driver the flash decided to work. After I took out the flash card and difuser and stuffed them back in. Being familiar with the stupidist speedlite "feature" ever, I thought as a last ditch effort I would try that, and now it works fine. 

It threw me off as normally if the difuser or card is not fully seated the display blinks on and off- not just on then off for good. 

Thankfully I didn't hit the "proceed to checkout" with my B & H order containing a new Speedlite. 🙂

Live and learn!

Thanks!

Peter