Olympus iS 3000 / iS 3 DLX flash hotshoe

wilwahabri · Mar 30, 2021

The hot shoe has a proprietary arrangement of pins which only works with the Olympus G40 flash.
I am trying to connect a GPS recorder to digitally geotag my photographs. I am quite capable of the mechanical and electrical work of constructing a special connector to fit the hotshoe, however I cannot find a diagram of the circuit or the function of each of the four pins.
Can anyone supply this information?

ic-racer · Mar 30, 2021

You can't just use the middle pin?

Never mind...I just checked my G40 flash and, of course, there is no middle pin.

Could you just try to connect any of the 4 pins to see which two will fire the flash?

wilwahabri · Mar 31, 2021

I can

ic-racer said:
You can't just use the middle pin?

Never mind...I just checked my G40 flash and, of course, there is no middle pin.

Could you just try to connect any of the 4 pins to see which two will fire the flash?

I can check it, and look for the approximate 5 v that is used in the sensing circuit, but need to know what the other pins do as well, one will be for indicating the flash is charged and the other will be for quenching the flash when the desired exposure is complete.

i suppose I am being a bit pedantic about this. I would like to get my hands on a service manual for this and the IS 3000, but they are like rocking horse droppings! This particular range of cameras are a bit like the "withered arm" on the old North Cornwall Railway (BR Western Region), little information available as they were only produced for a short period.

Helge · Mar 31, 2021

You live in Germany I see... I have an otherwise working G40 flash with broken focusing rack I can send you at shipping price, if you want something to probe around on and use the shoe from.
They can be a little hard to find I remember.

wilwahabri · Mar 31, 2021

Helge said:
You live in Germany I see... I have an otherwise working G40 flash with broken focusing rack I can send you at shipping price, if you want something to probe around on and use the shoe from.
They can be a little hard to find I remember.

Thank you Helge, that would be most helpful. PM me the necessary details please
Bill

ic-racer · Mar 31, 2021

Sometimes, even with the schematic, it can be hard to figure out what the pins do. For example in this SB-28, the pins are just shown connected to a complex integrated circuit.

wilwahabri · Apr 1, 2021

Well checked out the 4 pins on the flash, two have 5 volts on them relative to one other but shorting any pair does not fire the flash. Since it appears that the flash has to be connected to the camera electronics to operate correctly (the exposure good light does not work and teh flash does not vary its output if operated off the camera) I need additional confirmation of the function of the pins. As a matter of fact there is no side contact on the shoe either.

AgX · Apr 1, 2021

I still do not understand why one would need the accessory contacts for this very application.

ic-racer · Apr 1, 2021

Maybe easier to go after the date imprinting function and tap into that.

wilwahabri · Apr 1, 2021

AgX said:
I still do not understand why one would need the accessory contacts for this very application.

I don't need the accessory contacts I only need the lash trigger contact to mark a GPS track each time the shutter is released - no time or date data is available from the camera so the usual method of matching date and time will not work. The flash has 4 contacts but no pair fire the flash so I need data to determine which contacts are the trigger and which are the control pins.

wilwahabri · Apr 1, 2021

ic-racer said:
Maybe easier to go after the date imprinting function and tap into that.

Mine is an iS-3000 it does not have a date imprinting function only the QD versions have that. I also want it to work with any analogue camera having a hotshoe or pc socket - I have a number of analogue cameras, this one is problematical wrt the hotshoe connections

AgX · Apr 1, 2021

wilwahabri said:
I don't need the accessory contacts I only need the lash trigger contact to mark a GPS track each time the shutter is released - no time or date data is available from the camera so the usual method of matching date and time will not work. The flash has 4 contacts but no pair fire the flash so I need data to determine which contacts are the trigger and which are the control pins.

At all standardized hot shoes that got a central contact added by surrounding contacts the trigger contact is that central one. The ground is formed by the flanges of the shoe.

wilwahabri · Apr 1, 2021

AgX said:
At all standardized hot shoes that got a central contact added by surrounding contacts the trigger contact is that central one. The ground is formed by the flanges of the shoe.

not on this camera. It is a proprietary hot shoe, has no centre pin and no edge contact, only 4 pins 1 is ground, 1 is trigger 1 is ready and I think 1 is quench, however the camera send lens position info to the flash too to set the flash for tele or wide angle depending on the focal length of the zoom lens. It also appears that the flash intensity / duration is controlled by the camera. All I need to identify is the ground and trigger pins

AgX · Apr 1, 2021

I see. At the moment I only thought of the Minolta poprietary hot shoe, did not realize Olympus had such too.

wiltw · Apr 1, 2021

AgX said:
I see. At the moment I only thought of the Minolta poprietary hot shoe, did not realize Olympus had such too.

...and so did Sony use a unique hotshoe layout with no center Trigger.

wilwahabri · Apr 5, 2021

May have partly solved this. Olympus made an iS/L Multi Flash Synchro Module, which was basically a G40 flash with the flash head and high voltage parts removed and a standard pc socket fitted where the flash head was, If I can find one of those I have the triggering part solved.

Olympus iS 3000 / iS 3 DLX flash hotshoe

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