Thread: Lighnting machine help please??

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Hi people (newbie here),

so I bought a "Perfect Storm" lightning and thunder machine online (cheap, maybe too cheap) got it in the mail today, and alas, no lightning it seems to power up okay (the red power light comes on), but the CD is obviously a copy, and no blinky light... which is the whole freakin point! I tested my plugs, my tester 60watt light source, and used different speakers at different volumes, etc... but I can't get a single spark of light out of this sucker and it's just too big of a hassle to return it at this point.

I'm pretty much an ingnorant newbie when it comes to electronics, but I'm ready to crack this baby open and see what damage I can do with a soldering iron! If somebody could just give me some sort of hint what the heck I should be looking for?

...or a warning if I'm risking serious injury here (not that it's ever stopped me before ) That's why I'm asking BEFORE I open the Genie bottle.

Thanks!
`Wing

You might crack it open and look to see if there's a blown fuse in it.

Haven't seen one of these new ones in person yet, is there a sensitivity dial on it ? There is usually a dash pot to control sensitivity of sound input......
as for cracking it open, unplug it 1st & then open it up, but if you are not sure of what your doing in there,....well hate to see you learn a bad lesson....... would around ac & dc and neither is forgiving.

& if the power light is on then it should be working, unless a wire became disconnected on audio in or out

Um... yeah, oops

I opened it up (yes I unplugged everything first) and it seemed pretty simple:



didn't see anything obvious at first, no loose wires or connections, and then I noticed a thread sticking out from under one of the screws. I tried just pulling it out, but couldn't get a hold of it, so I loosened the screw, still no luck, so I took the screw out and pulled the bit of thread out. Then I put the screw back in (see big arrow on right/center below). Afterwards, I plugged everything back in (I didn't put the cover back on) and it worked perfectly!



Until I adjusted the sensitivity knob. A little spark, a puff of smoke (me scrambleing to unplug everything) and now it's really dead. I don't think I'm qualified to fix it this time (see small left arrow above for burnt out thingy).

So am I screwed?

Ummmmm, ya........looks like it fried.....something grounded or overloaded. Can't think of what the "thread" was you pulled out would have been - from the angles of the pic you have....... but yes it's now a book end. Sorry.

Originally Posted by Dark lord

Ummmmm, ya........looks like it fried.....something grounded or overloaded. Can't think of what the "thread" was you pulled out would have been - from the angles of the pic you have....... but yes it's now a book end. Sorry.

The thread was grey and just looked like it came off a shirt or rag or something. What I can't figure out is why it fried afterwards when it was working so well. However, somebody built the darn thing, and it's a simple enough circuit, and I'm tencious enough to want to know how to still fix it. I don't need any more door stops!

My thinking is that if I can replace the R12 thingy, then maybe there's a way to just bypass the sensitivity knob (my chief suspect) or make it stationary so it can't overload (or whatever it did) along with checking everything else in case the knob had nothing to do with it. I just hope I don't have to replace the whole board and everything on it, that's a bit out of my league.

Well you can replace the resistor if that's all it is, once you know the value & solder it in, but bypassing the dash pot / sensitivity needs to be there.you think that is the suspect, then maybe replace that also........

Have you taken the board completely out and looked at the back side of it ? Maybe there is something wrong on the backside that you disturbed when you loosened/tightened that screw ?

I just bought one of these machines from target. Got it home, all excited turned it on, and its a simple strobe light with some sissy thunder sound coming from the back. Lol if its the same one, don't be to dissapointed. The strobe doesn't even flicker at different times, it stayes a steady fast falsh the whole time. But best of luck to ya!

The burned up thing is a resistor. You can replace it with another one - the value is indicated by the color bands. Unfortunately, I can't tell what the colors are because of the discoloration. It doesn't matter which direction the new one goes in - they work the same either way. It's doubtful that the resistor is the problem, though. If you do decide to try to fix it, look the whole thing over carefully & see if there's any indication of something else getting hot, or if there are any stray wires touching where they shouldn't.