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DYI Repair of Off Camera Shoe Cord 2

by Larry Zaks

Contents

Introduction

After 5 years of steady use, my Canon Off Shoe Cord 2 developed a problem. The flash rocked back and forth in the shoe portion of the Off Shoe Cord 2 and as a result was not making proper contacts and failing to fire.

Method

Feeling I had nothing to lose, I chose to take it upon myself to see if I could repair the problem. After removing the screws on the bottom of the shoe portion with a Philips head jeweler’s screwdriver, I saw that four screws coming from the top of the shoe secured contact plate of the shoe assembly, and those screws were loose. I put the bottom shoe portion back together in order to concentrate on finding access to the four loose screws.

The top portion of Off Shoe Cord is where you slide the flash into place. The screws that were loose seemed to be covered by a thin metal plate or template that had cut outs for the main contact of the flash, the four pin-outs and the locking pin of the flash. I took a small flat bladed jeweler's screwdriver and carefully pried up the metal plate. I did so by sliding the flat blade of the screwdriver underneath the plate at the cut out for the locking pin and carefully lifting upward.

I then slide the plate off the shoe to reveal the four tiny Philips screws that were loose. I tightened them securely with the jeweler’s Philips screwdriver, and then slid the metal plate or template back in place and the repair was complete.

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Conclusion

The above repair eliminated the rocking back and forth of the flash in the Off Shoe Cord 2 and hence the flash was now communicating properly and flawlessly with the camera.

Revision History

v0.1 2003Nov22 lz: Original draft

Comments

A little lock tite or you wife's nail pollish added to the screws will stop them from losening again.


Andrew MacKay 12/11/2003 12:14:26 AM

I once broke the plastic base of the flash part of this shoe cord. I ordered a replacement, not the Off-Camera Shoe Cord 2, but a Off-Camera Shoe Adapter OA-2; which has the same plastic base part but costs much less. It works fine.
Craig Robinson 10/20/2004 10:57:01 PM

I was having intermittent problems - over exposure, flash loose on mount - I follwed these instructions and work what a difference - a very big thankyou for this link

thanks for posting
wayne walker 2005Jul10 03:44:09 -0700

It just goes to show that you can find anything on the internet. I was trying to repair my Off-Camera Shoe Cord 2 and was having difficulty getting the top plate off. Thanks for the detailed instructions.
Jim Varick 2005Sep29 17:26:30 -0700

thanks! you saved me another trip to the repair shop. that has been bugging me for months since i dropped the whole flash braket rig with my 1ds in it.
WilderHancock 2005Nov01 10:43:13 -0800

Conrad Erb produced a nice illustrated guide to the procedures for fixing an EOS 20D hotshoe (many other EOS hotshoes are similar, although there are minor differences) here:

http://www.conraderb.com/flashrepair/
Mark U 2006Dec13 09:21:41 -1000

Conrad kindly offered to contribute his page to the EOS Documentation Project:

http://eosdoc.com/manuals?q=FixHotshoe
http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00J94M
Julian Loke 2006Dec17 05:41:52 -1000

God bless you for this.
Steve Watkins 2010Feb12 23:15:22 -1000

Thank you! I just tried this on my pair of OC-E3 cords, and it worked great.
BryanH 2010Aug29 18:50:09 -1000


© 2003 Nov 22 Larry Zaks for EOS Documentation Project. All Rights Reserved.

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