Dead Smoke Machine

Sounds like an internal "thermal overload fuse" or "thermal overload resistor" has protected the unit from burning up. This can happen for many reasons. It's designed as a "fail safe system" if the thermostat fails and leaves the heater in a constant heat mode the heater could melt down and catch on fire. If the voltage into the unit is to low or far to high the same situation can happen. There is a good chance the unit is OK and only needs the thermal protection replaced.

is this something that I can order and replace myself or do I need to send the unit in?

i'm going to take an educated guess and go with the voltage was too low, I had a lot running off of one circuit.

I opened the unit up (warranty has long expired anyway) I saw the internal fuse checked it seemed to be fine. You had mentioned a thermal resistor i believe? Any idea where that is located on the board and if it's possible to check that with a voltmeter?

You can contact support at 800-322-6337 and they can further assist you. I don't recall the resistance value, but that sounds like the problem. The fuse is the final safety stop. If it's OK than it may be the first safety feature that triggered. Please remember this is just my educated guess based on my past experience with the products.

So I called support, didn't really get the information I was looking for from them, however, i decided to give it a go ahead and just try some stuff to see if I could get it to work. I removed the heating probe, pulled the internal fuse out checked it over again and again looked fine placed it back in, same with the heating probe looked fine to me (wasn't really sure what I was supposed to be looking for on there, it's basically just a piece of metal that takes the temperature i'm guessing) However, I placed everything back to the way it was supposed to be plugged the unit in and took my volt meter to the 2 leads from the heating probe. To my amazement i could feel the unit warming up so I monitored the voltage on the heating probe line. I used dc volts on the voltmeter, it stopped at 10mv dc so i'm guessing it turned the heater off. I then pressed the fog button to produce fog and i noticed the voltage on the line drop a little bit. The unit I guess then turned the heater back on to compensate and i watched the voltage on the line go back up to 10mv and stop. I repeated this process several times to make sure the heater was actually being turned off. One time it went up to 10.1mv dc but i'm assuming thats no big deal. I believe the unit is again functioning properly as everything seems to be in order. Does this sound about right to you support guys out there or should I still be concerned about the unit overheating etc. Thanks in advance -Mike

anyone??

Mike,

I tend to believe that there is an intermittent problem- probably in the thermostat or thermal fuse. I suggest you send it into our service department so that one of our techs can check it thoroughly for you. Be sure and call our service department for a return authorization number. I wouldn't want the same thing happening to you on your next gig.