Which cackle prop is it? Any pictures? (Of the prop and board)

 

 

He’s an SVI prop

 

On the top right hand corner labeled c8 that was the area that got extremely hot and looks like it heated the glue.

 

Great prop. Nice a big guy. I’d use a heat gun to remove the hot glue from that area and then you can recheck the connections with the red and black wires. Not sure if that black one needs to be resoldered. Also the connections around the LTK5130 audio amplifier chip look a little yellow light that might be fried. Let’s see if anyone else knows this prop and can help you out.

Fundamentally, it looks like he moves his head back and forth, the eyes light up, and there’s some audio. If you can’t repair the board, you can figure out the voltage requirements for the head movement motors and the LEDs and then build a separate system to power those separately.

 

Great prop. Nice a big guy. I’d use a heat gun to remove the hot glue from that area and then you can recheck the connections with the red and black wires. Not sure if that black one needs to be resoldered. Also the connections around the LTK5130 audio amplifier chip look a little yellow light that might be fried. Let’s see if anyone else knows this prop and can help you out.

Fundamentally, it looks like he moves his head back and forth, the eyes light up, and there’s some audio. If you can’t repair the board, you can figure out the voltage requirements for the head movement motors and the LEDs and then build a separate system to power those separately.

Think there's any chance a speaker shorted or dropped the impedance significantly? That little chip does look toasty, I wonder if it has short circuit protection built in or not, you know? I typically expect speakers to go open circuit like losing a wire but maybe there's rodent damage or corrosion/rust or highly conductive spider webs (JK on the last theory, but wouldn't that suck if it was a thing).

 

Yeah I’ll heat the glue and remove the speaker. At this point I’d prefer he at least light up.

 

Is there a way I could clean the board? Is there something I can safely wipe down with?

 

I like DeoxIT D5 contact cleaner for that sort of thing. It’s made for removing oxidation and is safe on plastic. As an aside, it’s the only thing that keeps my charging port working on my phone.

If the board got hot enough to release the blue smoke, though, no amount of contact cleaner will help. It’s definitely worth a try, but the board might be fried. You may have to pitch the board and power the lights and motors independently.

 

Yeah I was thinking the same. Going to look into the motor today and see what is need to power the motor and lights. If not at least the lights.

 

Maybe it's just the picture but it almost looks like the negative power wire is broken close to the soldered connection.

 

I’ll be trying to clean that area up and see if it in fact is disconnected and will attempt to reconnect today.

 

I agree with Engineerchic - the 8-pin device in the upper right looks like it may be fried, and possible the diode next to it as well. I can't see the part number on the 8-pin device clearly but it looks like it says "LTK5130" which is an audio amplifier. So you might consider removing that device and seeing if the rest of the system works properly.

 

Yeah, @Engineerchic is most likely right. Even from the picture the 8 pin SOIC is almost certainly bad. I would not immediately replace it though. I would measure the impedance of the speaker before replacing it. If I were at work, and needed to get this out, I would replace the SOIC, the protection diode and the speaker all at once. In my experience you can spend a bunch of time isolating it, but in a service environment if the parts are cheap don't linger on it.

That being said, personally I like to know why and I would invest more time in it than I probably should.

 

Yes I will most likely remove the chip and see what it does. If it does happen to work the movement and lights I will probably ordered the parts like you mentioned and replace them all. Thanks for the help
I’m hoping to get it fixed before Halloween.