This is where radio triggers such as the pocket wizards come in. They can fire through walls, around corners, even over 1000 feet away. The only thing they really require is a jack on the flash to plug into. Now of course, Pocket Wizard offers a cable that plugs right into the stock Vivitar jack, but there are some compelling reasons to add a miniphone jack. For one thing, this is a “do it now” sort of modification. You can run down to the electronic store TODAY and easily find the parts you need to do this. All it takes is a soldering iron, a 3.5mm mono jack cable, and a drill. It also can literally be done in twenty minutes. If you’re anything like me, instant gratification is a beautiful thing! Also, 3.5mm mono plugs are everywhere; you’ll have a relatively simple time adapting one onto other cables etc. Also, they are extremely reliable. They don’t pull out easily like a pc-sync port does and there is no part of them that is easily damaged. If you’ve ever had to sit there fiddling with a pc sync connector in order to get it to fit tightly, you know what I mean.

     My final reason for choosing a 3.5mm mono jack was so that I could easily plug it into my 580ex, then I could trigger it via a cable. I have performed THIS modification to my 580ex and by adding the jack to my 285hv it made my world simpler when it came to syncing the two units up. Check out the jack in the foot of my 580ex.

     Now they can easily be synced up with pocket wizards, or each other! This modification certainly isn’t for everyone, but if it proves as useful to a few people as it has to me then I am pleased.

     Performing the actual modification is relatively simple. You will need to go to an electronics store and purchase a cable with a 3.5mm (or 1/8” they are identical) mono female phone jack. Just buy the cheapest one you can because you’re only going to use the female jack end and about 3 inches of the cable. Strip back the cable’s sheath, separate the two wires inside and strip them at the ends. My cable had black and white wires inside, I assume most will be similar, perhaps you could see black and red. This is all that you will use from the cable, the rest will be extra for another project not yet foreseen! Remove the screws from the bottom of the flash’s foot. You will now be able to pull the foot away from the flash about ¾ of an inch or so. What you see inside will look like the picture below.

     You will then want to drill a small hole the same diameter as the cable you are using to add the jack. I used a 5/32” drill bit here. Be very careful to only drill through the very outer wall of the foot, you don’t want to be overzealous and mess up the innards. Drill the hole as I did in the image below.

     Feed the jack’s cable through the hole and solder the black (ground) wire to the black wire inside the foot, then solder the white wire (the power wire) to the white wire inside the foot. The picture should make this explanation make sense. Now you will just want to make sure things don’t move around in there. I used epoxy inside the foot where the cable enters through the hole to hold it in place. It’s not the most beautiful thing in the world since it turned a bit white, but it does its job. After that, just screw the foot back on and your all set, it really is a VERY simple modification. I keep a rubber band wrapped around the body of my flash to keep the jack from wagging about and getting in the way. I personally think that modifying my flash like this makes me look like a wicked cool guy. My wife however just thinks I’m a nerd, yours probably will as well!