Crown 173A Electronic Flash

Hello everybody.

Today I came across a few flash units that were part of the "win". A Pentax 160SA, JC Penny Electronic Strobe and a Crown 173A.
The JC Penny is non-working and headed to the recycle bin.
The Pentax had corroded batteries(exploded a bit). I had to take a piece of metal with hammer and tap the cover lightly to eventually dislodge the batts. I cleaned out the corrosion as best I could but when new batts were installed the unit wouldn't charge. One of the cover contacts was corroded through. I then remebered a trick learned here or somewhere in the photog world. I placed a piece of aluminum foil accross the batts before closing the cover. IT WORKS! It came with sparse instructions and was designed for a Program/AE priorty camera but can be used in Manual mode.

The Crown works as well. It seem a bit brighter and offers more guide choices. However, I cannot find a thing on the internet search engine about this unit. I decided the next best thing was to ask the members of the APUG community.
Please take a look at the pictures. Do you notice the three color selections on the front? These correspond to the guide on the back. What are they? I'm thinking the orange is for tungsten lighting, white for whatever and green for fluorescent.

The Crown flash offers manual exposure plus an auto exposure feature with two ranges.

When the switch on the front is set to white, it is on manual, and you can use the white numbers on the table on the fact to set your aperture (for 100 ASA/ISO and a flash to subject distance of 10 feet use f/5.6).

To use the auto function, switch the front switch to either green or orange and look carefully at the table on the back.

For 100 ASA/ISO you can use the green range up to a maximum of 14 feet (4.2 meters). You will need to set your f/stop to f/4, and the flash will adjust itself for flash to subject distances from close focus to 14 feet (4.2 meters).

For 100 ASA/ISO you can use the orange range up to a maximum of 19 feet (6 meters). You will need to set your f/stop to f/2.8, and the flash will adjust itself for flash to subject distances from close focus to 19 feet (6 meters).

The auto flash works by measuring the light bouncing back from the subject, and will rely at least partially on reflections from ceilings, floors and walls.

Close distances may result in faster recycling times - it depends on whether or not the flash offers "thyristor" circuitry.

ALL auto flashes that don't make use of in camera TTL functions work exactly the same way.

Hope this helps.

It does help, tremendously. Thanks Matt !

I should probably mention that the flash's auto function depends on a little sensor on the front (it's probably in the "O" in the word "CROWN" on the front).

It is a good idea to make sure that the sensor is unobstructed.

And to really go out on a limb...

Try pushing the red button at the bottom when the flash is set correctly for one of the auto ranges, pointed at the subject, and charged up (ready light lit). If you are lucky, when the flash goes off and the sensor does its work, if there is the right amount of light, the ready light may flicker, to signal correct exposure.

Again, if you are lucky, you may get the same flickering ready light when a regular shot works right.

Have fun!