partyanimal
Member
Hi wizards, I have a question. I'm trying to repair a Chauvet Hurricane 1301 fog machine. It's a relatively cheap model but it's quite reliable. I have a couple of these units but one is spitting fluid so I am seeking some answers here in this forum. The unit heats up fine and the remote triggers the fog output as expected but the unit eventually starts to spray fluid, signalling that the heater is cooling thus reducing the vaporization of the fluid into fog. Now, the heater seems to be working fine, getting quite hot and the output is also fine so I figured it's a faulty thermocouple. The thermocouple in these units is cast into the aluminum block so there's no way to access it to change it out. So.......... I drilled a small hole in between the two heater element terminals at the rear of the block, tapped it out to 6MM and installed a screw type K type thermocouple but the result was the same, hot fluid spraying out after some dense fog output. My question is, is it possible that the heating block is not heating up sufficiently, causing the fluid spraying, signalling a failing heating element an the end of it's life span? Or could it be that the wrong value of thermocouple was used? The original thermocouple doesn't have color coded wires, just red and black push type terminals and, after some research, it seemed like the K type is the type regularly used in fog machines in general. I've had an "incident" in the past with too high a value of thermal fuse used in a unit and the heater block melted completely so overheating of the block is a concern. There are also 2 small blue adjustable pots on the pcb and I'm wondering if these can adjust the working temperature of the heating element. I've included a pic of the pcb for reference. (Note: the picture is of an old non-functional pcb)