Magnetic Flash Modifiers (Yongnuo YN685)

A set of magnetically mountable light shapers for Yongnuo YN685 flashes, consisting of a gel holder and a honeycomb/grid that reduces the light output angle to roughly 40°.

The magnets used are widely-available 8x3mm neodymium ones (dia x thickness), two are required for each of the mount, honeycomb and gel holder. The gels have to be cut to size and glued inbetween a two-piece frame design which then can be pushed into a slot in the gel holder. Of course you can also simply throw a piece of gel inbetween the flash mount and any modifier you slap on it if you don't want to mess with the frame glueing.

If you design a mount for your particular model of flash you should be able to use the modifiers on it as well. The distance between the center points of the magnets is exactly 100mm.

This certainly is less convenient to use (gel handling is still somewhat sluggish) and likely neither as durable as the ridiculously expensive MagMod system.

But if you're just looking for any better way than duct-taping gels to your flash head and don't need professional quality, this is it. Likely cheaper to make than buying a chinese MagMod knockoff on Amazon.

Print instructions

I printed mine with PET, although PLA should also work unless you do rapid flash firing, in which case you might get heat issues. 3 perimeters, 15% honeycomb infill.

Turning on the "avoid crossing perimeters" option reduces the stringing with PET a little, but it's still awful particularly with the honeycomb. You may want to print this on a direct drive printer at low temperature.

The gel holder part you have to print upright, and if you want any chance on getting the support structures off the model after printing, you'll want to have supports generated only in a specific area of the print. I've included a ready-made 3MF file for this part with everything set. (Also see slicer screenshot)

Postprocessing

Shove the neodymium magnets into the provided slots. (Keep orientation in mind!)

Take two gel frame parts for each gel you want to use with the system, cut the gel to size, glue frame parts to both sides.