Recently, I added some photo related blogs to my reading list, amongst them strobist, and so I came across a post about the Open Source Wireless Trigger. Being interested in both electronics and free software, I read through most of the posts on the forum as well as the wiki. I also started experimenting a bit with an old Nikon SB-24 flash I had lying around since even if I managed to break it, it wouldn’t be that bad. And it’s old and robust.
So far, I’ve played around with how to make the flash go off. For the hot shoe, it’s just shorting the ground and center pin (I just used a big resistor). For the PC connector, I had to apply a bit of voltage; I used an AA/LR06 battery and that worked splendidly. (Oh, and PC in this context has nothing to do with computers, it’s an abbreviation of Prontor-Compur, two shutter manufacturers who decided on the design of the connector back in the 1950s.)