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I love pocketwizard products, I have been using their Plus III and Flex TT5 (Nikon|Canon) RF triggers for quite a long time now and they are awesome. But there is one problem with the Flex TT5 and Mini TT1 (Nikon|Canon), their hot shoes are not super strong. Pocketwizard claims that they are made from glass reinforced resin material and are designed to break on impact. This is so that on impact, it is better to break the Pocketwizard hot shoe rather than your camera hot shoe. That is quite an acceptable design, but having said that, I have had the Flex TT5 hot shoe broken off far too many times. If you put these Flex TT5 through some intense use, you will probably have experienced a few broken hot shoes. Getting them repair through distributor is not cheap either, not to mention you have to send them away.
After having the hot shoes broken too many times, I have decided to repair them myself. The repair is quite simple and only takes 5 mins, but the most difficult part is actually sourcing the spare part. Pocketwizard recommends you to send your units to the distributor to get them fixed (especially if you are outside US) instead of fixing them yourself. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to source these hot shoe spare parts for Flex TT5 and Mini TT1, so if you do want some, just contact me and I can send them to you. I accept paypal and will ship internationally. I do have the hot shoes for both Canon and Nikon system. You can see the two versions of the hot shoes below.
The repair basically only follow a few steps. You will need a small Philip screw driver and that’s it. Follow these steps and this installation video.
1. Remove the four screws under the hot shoes, see the installation video for their exact locations.
2. Push the hot shoe out to reveal the flat cable as shown below. Do not pull the cable yet.
3. Open the two tabs on each side to unattach the flat cable. See the installation video to locate the tabs.
4. Put the new hot shoe in and attach the flat cable. Close the two tabs
5. Put the hot shoe back in the original position and tighten up the four screw.
6. That’s it.
Repair complete replaced the broken Flex TT5 hot shoe with a new one.
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