How To Repair A Cold Spark Machine (CryoFX® Cold Spark Machine Repair)

How to Repair a Cold Spark Machine

What’s up guys? Chris here with CryoFX and today’s video has two different titles but mean the same thing. How to repair a cold spark machine or cold spark machine repair. You got a cold spark machine, and it’s not working, how do you repair it?

Diagnosing the Issue

Well, first and foremost, you got to diagnose the problem. What is the problem? The issue may be related to DMX, probably a DMX issue. I’ll show you where that is in a minute. Because the issue related to the power is the power actually where the wall receptacle is, and the problem resides in the machine. I will show you where that could be inside the cold spark machine later. Also, is the machine just not working?

If you’re using a wireless remote, there may be an issue with the frequencies. Many wireless remotes, a lot of remotes, many RF frequencies have intermittent problems. So, you want to make sure you’re dissecting and actually laser focusing on what the problem is and where the problem could be. If the machine’s on, if the DMX is working or the remote control is working, whether it’s a manual remote or a wireless remote.

Also, if something’s not working with the cold spark machine, you might hear the blower on the machine. If you hear the blower but nothing else is working, that problem is specific to the heating element itself. We’re going to talk about that in a minute. So again, coal spark machine repair.

Cleaning Your Cold Spark Machine to Prevent Problems

The most common issue that people deal with these machines is they don’t upkeep the machines. They don’t empty the machines out with the reservoir on top, and they don’t use the machine afterwards to get the rest of the sparks out. When you don’t do that, you’re going to get a clogged internal heating corkscrew or the heater is not going to turn on. One of the two heaters not turning on, probably an electrical problem.

So, I’ll tell you about the heaters here in just a second. If the machine does not want to work, what’s probably happening is you have spark granules inside, and you didn’t clear those out. Well, that’s your issue, but we’re going to tell you how to fix that here, I’m just telling you that because you would rather not hear it, but now you know how to clean your machine out better next time so that you can avoid those problems. So, let’s dive in.

What to Do If Your Cold Spark Machine Is Not Turning On

First and foremost, if the machine’s not turning on, there is probably a bad fuse so, check the fuse. Make sure you replace it with the right fuse. If the machine turns on, but you’re not getting anything happening, we’ll dive in. I’m going to show you exactly how to work the cold spark machine. Here, this is already taken apart so that you can see what the inside of it looks like. For the purpose of this video, if you want to come up just a little bit closer, you can hear my voice.

You won’t see me I know you want to avoid seeing me anyway probably not the prettiest looking guy. I had to make something comical in this video, so anyway, this is inside the machine. Now talking about how to repair a cold spark machine.

Opening Up the Cold Spark Machine

First and foremost, if I’m able to lay this down, that means nothing is plugged in on the other side, so before you even open the machine you want to make sure that nothing’s plugged in and that you let the machine sit for at least 15, 20, 30 minutes. Don’t quote me on the time, but there may still be a charge in the machine, especially if you just use the machine, let the machine sit for 30 to 60 minutes. I would say 60, let’s say 60.

Inside this heating element is going to be hot, I don’t want you touching this cold spark machine. You don’t want to be touching the machine when it’s hot, either. So while we’re talking about all that let’s say your machine’s cooling down, regardless, there are screws on the outside of this casing cold spark machine case that you’re going to want to take off. That’s how you get it taken off, here now this cord is originally going to be through the machine as such.

Where to Plug

What I’m going to do is show you exactly where this is plugged in. it would be plugged in right here. So cold spark machine repair tip number one, take this piece with some pliers and grab the top of this, do not pull by this wire, this is super, super fragile. You want to grab the top of this with some pliers and pull it out, and disconnect it. It says fan, some of the boards will not say fan. All the machines on the inside look the same or function the same.

Sorry, they don’t look the same, they function the same. Some may have a different board, maybe in a different area, so this particular machine is an Ispark FX m3, m4 machine. The larger ones, the m2s look similar inside all of them, function the same they all function similar, and they all have the similar insights. So, once the screws are taken out of this let’s say that this was up, screws were taken out of this.

Removing the Screws and Wires

Let’s even, you know what, for the sake of this video, I just want to be super explanatory here. I know we’re somewhat jumping all over, but let’s just say this was already on. This was put together, never opened. I know there are wires sticking out, forget that. Take these screws out, take the cap off, take those screws out, put those aside. Remember where you put the screws, all the screws are different.

These screws will not work here, these will not work here, don’t let a screw fall into this cavity here. Put the screws aside, take the other two, four, six, eight screws off this plate. I’m not going to do that here because it’s already done. When the plate comes off, especially on these machines, you have a ground wire that’s going to be connected to this tab here to ground the top of the machine out. This comes off too.

More on Removing Screws

Ground wire is noted in green, let’s hope to God it’s green. You go ahead and there is one screw here, one screw down here, and screws on the other side and that allows you to take this plate off. Actually, there’s two down here as well, kind of jumping all over but want to just get to the point here, hence the quickness of it. Once those are done you set this down, that other piece will be connected here. Just make sure that you don’t over extend that and pull it out.

You’ll want to get that out, you’ll take the other screws off the bottom here, then you take this case and get that wire out of there. And then you will put this aside so the cold spark machine case, put that to the side. Now you have the inside here again, not plugged in, not heated, not used within the last 60 minutes so.

What to Do When You Have Stuck-In Granules

Cold spark machine repair or how to repair a cold spark machine. The number one problem you’re going to have is you’re hearing the blower, but you’re not getting this turning. This turns easily right now because this is completely clean inside. If it wasn’t, what you have is, and I have other videos that open this up and show you the inside, you have a corkscrew that goes through a cylinder and that meets up right at the edge.

Obviously, those granules get in between that edge right there, and it makes it where it can’t turn, you don’t clean it out. Those are going to harden there and that’s where your problem is. Some of the spark machines I will tell you right now, you can just crank this, and you can with your hands or some of them have chains, and you can crank that chain or take a pair of pliers gently and crank this.

That will do enough to get your spark machine loose and then get this turning again, and they get it working again. Don’t test it while it’s open, put it back together and test it to make sure it’s good. Just note that you want to go ahead, and you want to make sure that you don’t let that happen again. You have to clean this every time, but while you’re at it, might as well talk about opening it all the way up and going inside the link below in the description on how to clean the actual heating element.

More on Repair Information

It also has information on how to repair it but covering the basics here, just for this video. What you’ll do is you’ll go ahead and these screws you’ll loosen, let me get my pointer here which is a handy screwdriver, one, two, three, four. You’ll loosen these screws, you’ll push this down, well, actually it would already be down, but you would go ahead and push this up. And then you would take the belt off Allen wrench here 5, 64 inches, it goes in this little thing here.

You loosen these one, two, and then this will go ahead and pull off once you take this off. You can see it’s kind of difficult to get off. Then you have this other little piece that comes off as well. These come out, I’m just going to unscrew these again. These are already loosened, but you’d have one, two, three, four, one, two three, four, those would come off now regardless of what method. You take this off, you can leave that just like that one screw here.

Removing the Granules

I’ve already taken out this is for the reservoir on top, the other screw over here I got a drill, and I’m doing this with a screwdriver. Let’s go ahead and just so make sure that you do not lose that screw, set that to the side now. I’m going to say this while I hold this because I want you to take a note in this, as you can see here, there’s probably granules still inside here. If you didn’t empty them out all the way already. So, you want to make sure that you get this where you can.

Get your finger right underneath and then empty those granules out. No granules in here, but this comes apart. This is exactly what this looks like, I think that this even comes off the top here. This even unscrews, and I’ll go ahead and just show you this for the sake of the video, you can get inside. Blow all that out, clean that out, use an air hose to blow all this out. Put this back on again. Most of the machines will do this.

No Solvents

You can clean this, let me say do not use any solvent, no solvent. Air hose only, no liquids, no solvents. If you’re using rags, make sure that they don’t leave any leftovers behind any threads, things like that. You’ll set this aside now, this is already taken apart. Let me move this again. So, there is a screw that goes right here, under here and there’s a screw that goes right here. Those have already been taken out before we did this video so that these two frames can come apart as such. What you’ll do is you’ll pull these apart, you’ll get this out.

Taking care of other Internal Cold Spark Machine Components

See how this just compresses itself right into there, and you just gently pop that out there when you take this apart. There is a ceramic style washer that goes here you can put that aside and then here’s your heating element, what this looks like inside is like this. All that is the insulation that’s inside. You have your heat shield here, that kind of gets everywhere. This is the actual heating element itself.

So, I have a heating element that we used that we actually took off from another machine. Put this aside, this is what it looks like, okay? You have your temperature sensor wires that are right here. The white ones which after a while they get burnt, and they get crisp as you can see here. That’s why you have some of this white crap going everywhere, and then you have your actual wires that come off the heating element itself.

Ground Wire and Heating Element

There is the ground wire which connects, you can see this heating element here, the ground wire connects all the ground wires. Connect right here, you have your other ground wire that goes into your power cons. You have another ground wire, sorry that I actually forgot to say earlier on the video, that goes to this clip on the side right here. So, this one does go here. I did forget to mention that earlier in the video, don’t hate me for that, leave a bad comment if you want to put me on blast, I’m ready for it.

Anyway, these two pieces to the heating element are actually what connect to the board, specifically those are right here on this board, so you have one and two. Not every board is going to be like that. Okay, make sure you have the proper tools and the proper gloves. This heating element as you can see literally just wraps around this post if you will.

Cleaning out the heating element

To get that off you have to take this screw off which is the temperature sensor that is right here. Do not lose the two washers there. If there are two washers underneath that screw, if you lose those washers, that screw goes in so far that the internal part of this which is this will hit those screws. When this happens, it will not work. This one, we kind of cleaned on an earlier video, however, that’s what the inside looks like.

You want to avoid using solvent with the bearings or with any of this. No liquids at all. Take a wire brush, you want to clean this off with a wire brush. Make sure the wire brush is new, do not use the wire brush for your barbecue grill. Do not use the one for your battery terminals. It will corrode it, which will cause problems. Get a new wire brush. Wire brush this off, get the inside clean.

Here you can use a brand-new pipe cleaner to the wire brush pipe cleaner to clean out the inside here. Blow this off, kind of clean it. Now if you’re replacing the heating element, if you wonder how do how to repair a cold spark machine heating element, we have another video that we’re going to talk about that. I go in the detail you’ll take this screw off, you’ll actually replace the whole heating element.

Putting the Cold Spark Machine Back Together

I’m not going to do that here so what we’ll do is we’ll go ahead put this back together, that’s what the inside looks like, put that back together. We will bring this over here now, I got my other ceramic washer. I’ll put that here all that crap, get that off there now this lines up one way. This top piece and this piece, you want for this and for this. By doing so, I just insert this again, boom, goes on just like that as you can see.

This piece right here is where the granules come out that goes into this little piece right here, which is the vertical piece that air comes out to blow the sparks up. What I’m going to do is put this shaft through here, go ahead and kind of crank this out, like that, pull this apart and, boom! Get that seated just right like that. Now when you put this back together, I’m going to tip, I’ll get that in a minute, so what we’ll do actually, let me get it right now, all over the place here. But hey, live video, you know what I mean?

So, what we’ll do is go ahead and line this back up. So, you want to make sure that the screw goes in here. You line that washer up, get the screw in, move the motor or sorry move the heating element around. One screw goes in, you move that with your finger, another screw goes in, I’m not going to put the other two screws in just for this video. You will tighten these down with a screwdriver or a drill. Then you put this piece back on the shaft here.

Putting the Belt Back On the Cold Spark Machine

These were the pieces, the two little screws that are inside here that you will clamp down with this Allen wrench once it is on. So then you’ll go ahead, you’ll put that back on. Lift your motor up, put the belt sorry getting ahead of myself here, look at that, take the Allen wrench, tighten this back down. If I didn’t say that already, once those are tightened down, then you take the belt, lift the motor up, put the belt on. If we can get that there, boom!

Make sure the belt’s in the grooves with my hand underneath. I’m going to push this motor down and then tighten these four screws. I’m not going to do that on this video because I want to get to the end and I want to keep it short. But I will push this down tighten these screws down then go back, here’s my reservoir, right here is the funnel.

Put the funnel on the reservoir, there’s the area where the screw goes what I’m going to do is turn this, the funnel goes in this hole as such, boom! And then I rotate this around, I’ll go ahead, put my screw in here, boom! Now for this video, we don’t have the other screw, and I’m not going to put the other screw in. This is because I want to make sure that I get the basics down, and I show you guys how to do this. So, the other screw would go in here. Again, you’d have your screws there.

Reconnecting the Screws and Wires

Now, the last thing I forgot, you have a screw right here which I don’t have, on this table that would go in here and another one right here. Those would go in. these would be screwed in tight. The other screws behind here would already be in. that screw would be in. use your imagination to picture all that, then you go ahead. You grab the outer case, feed the wire back through the machine. Where is that little guy, looks like it’s getting stuck on something?

So, there we go, so that wire goes back through this case, goes on as such, this wire will connect right into there just like that. I’m not going to push it down, but I would push it down if I were you. If you want your cold spark machine to work right, and what that does is, this is the fan on the other side of the machine, and you’ll go ahead and put this grounding cable back on the machine like that.

More on Reconnecting the Screws

You know what, I’ll go ahead and put this in for the sake of the video here, boom! Now these would all normally be zip tied, you can put a zip tie here and another zip tie outside of that right here to kind of hold these together, but basically, you would put this machine back up again, nothing on top right here. You don’t want any wires on top.

You would put this back up as such to make sure you don’t pinch any wires, now I’m not going to put the screws in on this video but what you would do is you would put your screws in on the machine. Furthermore, you would line it all up, screw, screw, screw two on the back, three more on the side here, and then you would go ahead, remember that post that was sticking off, that’s where the ground wire goes. Put the ground wire on that.

Endnote – Cold Spark Machine Repair

You go ahead, put this piece back on the top here as such, boom! Just like that and of course, screw here, screw here, this looks all janky because nothing is put together, but it would be put together. And you would put your screws back in the top here and that is how, of course, you want to avoid forgetting your cat. That is how to repair a cold spark machine.

I’m Chris this is CryoFX, thanks for watching this video. Other resources in the links below. Until next time, we’ll see you in the next video.