Changing the battery on the Phottix Strato Trigger

If you own one of these triggers (Also known as the YongNuo YN-16), at some point you are going to have to change the battery. This moment came quite quickly for me because the button was accidentally held down in my bag and the trigger was completely dead when it came time to start shooting. Fortunately I always carry a spare so it wasn't a disaster.

Changing the battery however can be a disaster. The reason for this is that there is a component called a bastard spring. If it comes lose you will understand why it is so named. The bastard spring is used by the centre pin of the hot foot and once it pops out of its slot it is very difficult to put it back in without breaking the soldered connection to the circuit board. If that happens, the trigger is going to be junk unless you are very good at soldering.

So I'm going to show you the proper sequence for changing the trigger battery without ruining your trigger.

Step One: Turn your trigger face down and undo the screws. Carefully remove the screws without pulling the two halves of the trigger apart.

Step Two: It is crucial that the foot stays attached to the bottom half of the trigger. Carefully turn the trigger face up and with your finger lightly on the foot, pull the front of the trigger off. At this stage it would make sense to put a dab of glue on the foot where it connects to the bottom half of the trigger so that you won't have to worry about it ever again.

Step Three: Change the battery. If you haven't glued the hot foot to the cover, you need to be careful doing this as it is far too easy for that bastard spring to pop out

Step Four: Put the cover back on. The grey button for the trigger needs to have the little tab facing the foot. Other than that its pretty straight forward to put it on and screw it all back together.

There you have it, be very careful and you should have no problems. I'm planning on doing a post at some point on how to modify the trigger so that the test button won't get pressed accidentally. It will probably involve velcro. But you could just leave the test button off completely if you don't use it.