I just got Vivitar 285HV. Nice flash, seems to be much higher quality than cheap Bower flash I returned same day it was delivered.
Now I want to trigger it remotely. I got two optical slaves:
1. Wein Peanut PN. I tried with PC cable supplied with flash and directly and it does not seem like it works. It can fire flash randomly but most of the time is dead. I guess it has something to do with connector which does feel very tight when inserted directly into flash port.
2. Seagull SYK-4. Its actually hot shoe adapter with optical slave. It works much better than first one, at least when in direct line of sight.It triggers when flash is in hot shoe and connected thru PC cable. I did not make many tests to tell if its 100% reliable.