Kittmaster has been working really hard to get this disco lite I bought from member miesjel back to life. It was described as fully working by him and now is called a "basket case' by kittmaster. It was definately a non functioning parts box when it was sold to me. It has cut wires, blown up pots, and melted sleep power switch.
here is a link to the thread:
http://stereo2go.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/4236097725/m/1721046715
Anyway, Kittmaster has asked me to post this picture and is having trouble locating where some cut wires go to:

Does anyone who has a disco lite know where the purple and black wires go to?

Sorry for the mini-rant in the tech section, but I am pissed about this.

here is a smaller version of the picture

Damn you meisjel.

It looks like it goes to a 6V light but not sure where as of yet.

Anyone have a tuner wheel for the string? The one in this one is toast......this box should have been parted out. I feel bad because appleknocker got screwed by someone who lied about its condition......this box is a complete basket case.

kitt man would a different tuner wheel work cos im sure i could dig up a few if need be

Hey Kitt and AppleK,

the purple and black wires are the drive for the lights in the speakers. The 2 lights in the left speakers are wired in series and the 2 in the right are in series, then the are both driven in paralel. The lights should be dead, if they haven't been bridged like AK74's bbx.

Need more help let me know.

Roddy

quote:

Originally posted by jvc floyd:
kitt man would a different tuner wheel work cos im sure i could dig up a few if need be

Yes as a matter of fact they are very close!!.

The diameter is show here....it is around 2 13/16". Shaft is almost 1/2 tall and looks like the following:

Here is more on the purple wire saga and the question of the day regarding the audio feed to the disco circuits:

Hey Kitt,

well for starters I think you have an early version of the discolite, what model ist it exactly?? The lights for the speaker are mounted on the back chassis, usually they are directly mounted to the back of the speakers.
The PCB is also elsewhere. And it looks like its combined with the power supply..??? They are normally separate.

The shield is correct not to be connected at the drive PCB. Can you take a complete photo of the PCB from above and below?

But judging from your photos, it should still work.ie. the discolights anyway. Somebody has just hard wired the light driver outputs to the lamps. (the black & yellow are doing the same job as the purple and black usually do)

Whats are the fault symptoms.?

Cheers. Roddy

I wish i had a box like this, id ship it to you just so u could straighten this mess out,good luck wit it.When and if you ever get it straight u should make a schematic of it just so others could be fixed.It seems thou you are gonna need a working unit to look at in front of you so u could fix this 1 the same.

quote:

Originally posted by jvc floyd:
kitt man would a different tuner wheel work cos im sure i could dig up a few if need be

Floyd, any luck on these?

Wow, what a mess.

I have faith in you Chris! Allen you are in good hands!

Well the wiring's not that much of a mess, cause all of the older discolite's with the lights mounted on the back chassis have this type of wiring. Thats how they came from the factory.

The tuning wheel is gonna be a bit nasty but not impossible. Good luck Chris.

Roddy

quote:

Originally posted by roddy@RADIOHIER:
Hey Kitt,

1. >>>>>>>well for starters I think you have an early version of the discolite, what model ist it exactly?? The lights for the speaker are mounted on the back chassis, usually they are directly mounted to the back of the speakers.
The PCB is also elsewhere. And it looks like its combined with the power supply..??? They are normally separate.

2.>>>>>>But judging from your photos, it should still work.ie. the discolights anyway. Somebody has just hard wired the light driver outputs to the lamps. (the black & yellow are doing the same job as the purple and black usually do)

3.>>>>>>Whats are the fault symptoms.?

Cheers. Roddy

1. Still haven't gotten the model, will report that later

2. I'm going to restore the hard wire. It looks like it may have been cut from the factory and hardwired as an after thought. I'm rolling with that because if its true, then restoring the two wires to this connector will keep the front panel from being removed from the back by the two permanent wires.

3. Expanding on #2, this box was/partially still is a basket case. It wouldn't power up among other things, so we were not sure if that could have been part of the problem. Came down to the sleep switch contacts were complete fouled up. Being complete plastic housing (YUCK), took some black magic to get it back to operation.

Got to the point last night, there are NO faults in the discolite circuits now that the power problem is fixed. If there is no sound is present, the lite do a slow chase between the leds.....and when either source is playing, they speed up. So that is working. The drivers are working.....we are well on our way.....

Thanks for you help and input. I think I'll remove the two cut connector ends from the connector so that in the future, it will always look like they were meant to be done that way.....

I'm also converting it to LEDs so that the bulb burn out issue goes away.....

Repairing both damaged door hinge mounting points......that is going to be the stumper.....

Good to see you got it up and going.

Thats true with the hardwired light driver outputs, the cover would be unable to be removed completely. Like I said the other versions have the lights directly stuffed into the hole in the back of the speaker, and therefore don't have this problem

Changing the lights to LED's is also good for the light effect in itself due to the faster on/off switching rate of LEDs.

Ha ha, the tape door issue, yep almost every one of these units I've repaired has had these broken off. Up until now the small pis have been flying around in the bottom of the chassis, so I could glue them back on and then re-inforce them by gluing a piece of anything behind it.

Cheers.

Its coming along.....some minor details to wrap up but here are the current results