Godox MS300 + XT16 ~ communications setup

I recently purchased a new studio strobe and remote trigger and had trouble getting the system set up to communicate between the trigger and the strobe.

This article documents a setup that seems to work for me.  At least for now.

The strobe is a Godox MS300.  The instructions on its use are found here.

The trigger is a Godox XT16.  The instructions on its use are found here.

Looking at the back of the trigger I saw a dial that goes from 0-F and is labeled POWER. Hmmm.  What does _that_ mean?

I found a video on YouTube, but my Hindi isn't up to scratch.  I turned the sound off and tried to follow along with the button pressings.  I kind of got the hang of it, but I watched a second video that proved to be a little more helpful, even though the remote trigger was not the model I have.

Shown here are
the Godox XT16 remote controller
mounted on a Sony NEX-5T and
MS300 strobe side by side
so I can see both display
and button systems

In short, here is what I found - 

On the MS300 strobe -

• Pressing the GR/CH and S1/S2 buttons simultaneously turns on/off the strobe radio.  In my case I wanted the strobes radio turned on.
• Pressing the GR/CH button with a short duration press causes the GROUP indicator to blink.  Turing the strobes dial changes the GROUP.  Selecting a GROUP is confirmed by pressing the center of the dial (it pushes down).
• Pressing the GR/CH button for 2 seconds causes the CHANNEL indicator to blink.  Selecting a CHANNEL is confirmed by pressing the center of the dial (it pushes down).

On the XT16 remote trigger -  

• Set the POWER dial to the GROUP number/letter selected on the MS300 strobe.  I think the dial is mislabeled and really should have been labeled as GROUP.  The actual On/Off power is a slider button the side of the remote trigger.  Again, I think the engineers/designers screwed this up.
  
  
  
  
• Set the dip-switches to the CHANNEL selection made on the MS300 strobe.  As a guide there is an indication on the strobe to how the dip-switch settings are to be made on the remote trigger.
  
  
  

There are two things that remain a mystery to me.

On the XT16 remote trigger there is a button labeled SET.  Pressing it for 2 seconds changes the display.  Pressing it again for 2 seconds changes to something different on the display.  

It appears there are three modes or styles for displaying the light output of the MS300 strobe, if indeed these are what the three different numbering systems refer to.  One display style representation is a fraction of the overall light output (ie: 1/32 +0.3EV).  Another style starts with the number 1 and the other starts with the number 5.  

I can't find a clear indication of how these three XT16 display labeling styles correspond to the MS300. 

A second thing that confuses me is that there doesn't seem to be any way of controlling the light output display value on the strobe.  I have seen the MS300 display two different light output styles - the fractional light output and the display style numbering system that starts with "5."  

Worst still, the MS300 light output display style changes randomly.  Even worse than that, these display styles appear to be independent of what is displayed on the XT16 remote trigger.  

I expected that once I'd selected the display style on the XT16 that these would be communicated to the MS300, but they are not. Or, minimally, I thought I would be able to select the light-output display style on the MS300, but I can't find the magic incantation.

Nowhere is there any description of how these things should or could inter-relate.  There is no indication of their meaning, other than what is clearly implied by the fractional light-output style of display.

[rant on] The inconsistencies in these products bother me.  From an engineering, marketing, and product integration perspective the Chinese could have done a far better job.  This isn't complex stuff, really.

They are very good at ripping off western product implementations, but the Chinese still have seemingly zero understanding of the importance to also rip off western designers sense of what it takes to build a system of well integrated products.  Based on my initial experience, usability and labeling is a mess chez Godox.

Further, there isn't enough "tribal knowledge" that comes with use that can help guide newbies to this kind of product set such as myself.  So I'm left thrashing things out as best I can.

In the end, I feel I got exactly what I paid for.  I have an adjustable light output remote controllable strobe with rather little to guide me as to how the system actually works nor what parts of the display system are trying to communicate. [rant off]