[superbass]

I have the 540 and the 360 pentax flashes. I usually just use one of them wirelessly, but today I tried to use both of the flashes in wireless mode. It didn't work for me. Only the 540 fired when both were on, and the 360 only fired if the 540 was off and I had just set the 360 to my camera by putting it on the hot shoe. Also, I was able to on board flash as a wireless controller with my remote on 3 second delay, but after taking a few shots and trying to use both flashes, I was not able to use the wireless flash setting with the 3 second delay remote.

Does anyone have 2 540's(or 360's) that they use wirelessly without triggers?

[amoringello]

First, hopefully you have a K10D or istD (likely K20D works as well). Other models will fire wirelessly from the pop-up flash. You say you usually only use one to fire wirelessly, so I assume this is the case and you have successfully fired using the camera's pop-up flash.

Set the flashes switch on the right side to allow the light button to turn on the back lighting.
Now hold the Light button for a few seconds. You should see the status message "SL 1".
That is the mode for PTTL wireless. If it happens to say "SL 2", then the flash is set for dumb slave mode and will fire immediately during pre-flash communications -- i.e. you won't see any effect in your photos. If tat is the case, hit the "S" button on the dial and change the mode back to "SL 1".

Are all of the flashes set to "SLAVE"? Make sure you don't have them set to "MASTER" or "CONTROL". Again this may affect whether they flash for communications-only, or if they also flash to affect your final image. You would only need to change that if you need to place one flash in the hot shoe to control another, such as would be the case for the other cameras not capable of wireless flash via the pop-up.

If that doesn't help, list the settings you are using on each flash.

You probably know this, but wireless flash is line of sight communication by the flashes actually flashing before the photo is taken. If one flash is not facing the other (especially outdoors) or if it's sensor is obscured, then you will have problems.
As a test, face both flashes directly at the camera and within a few feet. If that works, you simply need to work on positioning.

[superbass]

First, hopefully you have a K10D or istD (likely K20D works as well). Other models will fire wirelessly from the pop-up flash. You say you usually only use one to fire wirelessly, so I assume this is the case and you have successfully fired using the camera's pop-up flash.

Yes, I have the K20D and I use the camera's pop up flash as the control.

Set the flashes switch on the right side to allow the light button to turn on the back lighting.
Now hold the Light button for a few seconds. You should see the status message "SL 1".
That is the mode for PTTL wireless. If it happens to say "SL 2", then the flash is set for dumb slave mode and will fire immediately during pre-flash communications -- i.e. you won't see any effect in your photos. If tat is the case, hit the "S" button on the dial and change the mode back to "SL 1".

Yup, this was the problem. Thanks! I use the flashes in manual, and the 540 was set to sl 2. When I changed the 360 to sl 2 also, both flashes fired. If I have both flashes in PTTL on sl1, does that mean both flashes will communicate with the camera and fix the exposure automatically? I was never really clear on the wireless capabilities of the Pentax flashes.

Are all of the flashes set to "SLAVE"? Make sure you don't have them set to "MASTER" or "CONTROL". Again this may affect whether they flash for communications-only, or if they also flash to affect your final image. You would only need to change that if you need to place one flash in the hot shoe to control another, such as would be the case for the other cameras not capable of wireless flash via the pop-up.

If that doesn't help, list the settings you are using on each flash.

You probably know this, but wireless flash is line of sight communication by the flashes actually flashing before the photo is taken. If one flash is not facing the other (especially outdoors) or if it's sensor is obscured, then you will have problems.
As a test, face both flashes directly at the camera and within a few feet. If that works, you simply need to work on positioning.

I just tested it out and both of them are firing now. Thanks again. Now I just need to figure out how to get the pop up flash to fire as a controller with the 3 second remote delay.