Ebay hot shoe accessory

I recently bought an eBay hot shoe accessory and it came in the mail today:

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I wanted this so that I could use my FL-14 flash on the E-M1 with the 4/3 lenses (to avoid cutoff), as well as to be able to use a flash off-camera via the PC sync cord. Unfortunately, the adapter only works via the PC sync attachment and when I tested the connections with a meter, there were some blanks. So I unscrewed the case and found this:

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Only two of the wires connect to the flash terminals, but not even correctly for the Olympus/Canon configuration. The unit is otherwise very well made and appears quite sturdy, but why the missing wires? This is supposedly for a Canon camera, where the terminals are the same as for Olympus, other than one which is not used.

I've contacted the seller and I'm awaiting a response.

 

I could rewire the hot shoe, but that's not the point; it was advertised as fully compatible with all Canon cameras and, without the wires, it's not compatible at all. I won't mention the seller until I get a response from them, but if it's not positive I will post their details.

 

To answer both, if the internal wires had been attached to the connections, the shoe would have passed through all the correct signals to a compatible flash attached to the hot shoe. That's exactly how my Canon Off-Camera Shoe Cord 2 works. I simply wanted a hot shoe that would elevate my smaller Olympus flash units to clear the larger lenses. It serves this purpose from tests with the PC Sync cord, but I don't have TTL auto because of the lack of internally connected wires. The hot shoe is nothing more than a pass through, if correctly wired.

 

To quote from the seller's eBay site:

I usually research things before I buy. I don't contact the seller to confirm that what they have posted is actually true.

 

PC sync can't provide any TTL, it's just a dumb switch; however, the contacts would have provided TTL (if the wires had been there). Since I haven't heard back from the seller, I've raised a dispute. I'm happy for either a refund or a properly functioning hot shoe to be sent over. I'm not blaming the seller at the moment, he/they probably get these in bulk from somewhere (like most others) and may not know that they have received faulty/incomplete units. I've always had good service from Chinese sellers and have always come to an amicable outcome when there has been a problem (very few actually), but sometimes you have to get their attention by raising a PayPal dispute. I always play fairly with them and on two occasions I've had to seek a refund for an item that hasn't arrived, but then some days later, the item turns up (excessively delayed somewhere for whatever reason) and I've immediately transferred the money to the seller.

 

I may be able to solder in the appropriate wires without stuffing up the circuit board etc, or I may not, but that's not the point. On principle, I was sold something that didn't meet any of the described performance aspects and it shouldn't be a buyer's responsibility to try and fix something that didn't work. It's like buying a brand new lens, finding that it doesn't autofocus and being told to pay for it's repair. The value of the item doesn't matter.

The seller emailed back and suggested that I find a repairer and it shouldn't cost much to fix, and when I replied that it would cost more than the hot shoe, they then offered a small refund. That to me suggested that the seller knew their product did not meet their advertised specs and was being dishonest, so it's now a matter for PayPal to determine an outcome. This is the first time that I have had such a response from a Chinese seller, with no offer to rectify the issue, just take it or leave it.

 

It was only $7, but that's not the point. If say one or two of the wires (had they existed) come loose, then I wouldn't have sweated it at all and would have looked at fixing it myself, but selling something that patently doesn't do what it is supposed to do (it's more or less an empty box) is another thing altogether.

 

The seller has refunded the purchase price and asked if I would be willing to buy another. I have said that I'd be happy to buy another one if they can confirm that all the connections work. I understand that many of the sellers work on very small margins, but the point is that they need to make sure that the items they sell meet their descriptions, otherwise they will get negative reviews. I may often take a chance on a item of very low value and wear the cost if the item wasn't correct. In this case, I wasn't buying it on the off-chance that it might work.

As I said earlier, I wanted this so that it would elevate my smaller FL-14, so that I could use it with my 4/3 lenses as a TTL auto fill flash. The hot shoe elevates the flash sufficiently, but because of the lack of connection internally, it doesn't provide TTL auto or even fire the flash at all (only the PC sync cable fires the flash). The PC sync was just an aside, which would allow me to use a flash off to the side in auto/manual mode if I wanted. Yes, I might be able to solder a set of wires to make the hot shoe work, but I might just as easily stuff up the whole thing trying to solder things in my ham fisted way with my gas soldering iron.

 

That Pixel hot shoe is basically exactly what I have, other than labelling, and sans the wires connected internally. I will ensure that they fully confirm that every contact connects top to bottom before I purchase and if they don't, they will be once again refunding the purchase price. I don't think it was intentional and they may well have been simply relying on whoever they get these from. I would guess that the seller will be conferring with whoever supplies these hot shoes and asking why the internal wiring hasn't been properly done, perhaps enhanced with a shouting match. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.