Welcome to my first blog post for Santa’s Repair Shop. My friends call me Z. You can call me Z or Santa’s Repair Elf. I wanted to be a dentist but that was a long time ago and a different story. I might tell it another time.
I believe it is customary on these occasions to rave about all the wonderful things that are going on with the blog. To say that the writer hopes you will share the joy of his or her passion and that you should visit the site time and time again for all our updates. So with that out of the way, I want to do something entirely different.
I want to give you a few tips on how to keep your prize color wheel turning for as long as possible. Don’t get me wrong, our business is repairing color wheels. We would love to get you going again when that 60-year-old motor finally gives up the ghost. But the glittering, space-age, Christmas of the fifties is rapidly disappearing. Each year hundreds of color wheels and aluminum trees find an unnecessary final resting place in the garbage. Once gone they will not return. As the Ghost in The Christmas Carol says, “If these things do not change, I see an empty place at the table.”
Let’s look at a few things you can do. The first one I call “Mistaken Identity.” The Christmas Season is starting. You get out the trusty color wheel and plug it in. And nothing. Not a sound, not a grind. Nothing. The thing is dead. What do you do? Many people will chuck it in the trash.
Don’t count the wheel out too quickly. Is there power in the outlet? You wouldn’t believe the number of times the outlet and not the color wheel is the problem. Maybe it is a switched outlet. Maybe the circuit breaker clicked in a recent storm. Plug something else in and see if it works. If it doesn’t, your problem is in the wall, not the color wheel.
Ok. So we have power to the wheel. But no sound at all. Does your plug look like this?
If the plug is bent either in or out, it may not be making contact in the outlet. Straighten the prongs and try again.
So now let’s say you have power to the light but the color wheel motor is not turning. Look at the wires running to the motor. Do you see bare or broken wires? Maybe a black smoky spot near a wire? This can be a short and a short is dangerous! Unplug the color wheel, immediately and either fix the wiring problem yourself or have someone do it. Never use any appliance with bare or broken wiring!
Ok. You have power and no broken wiring, but now the motor is making a heavy grinding noise like the alarm on an old wind up alarm clock. There is one thing you can try. Disconnect the color wheel. Place one tiny drop of machine oil on the spindle of the motor. (See the picture.)
If one drop does not do the trick, 20 drops or a quart for that matter will not fix it and may stop it from working altogether. So don’t over do it. People send us units with so much oil on them they should qualify for toxic waste dumps. Trust me. A drop might help. A gallon? Nope.
Now the motor is grinding, stopping and starting, or shaking. These are the signs of a motor at the end of its life. It’s natural to want to try to get as much life out of the motor as you can, but the problem is that a wheel that rotates intermittently can cause melting of the lens. If the wheel stops rotating and no one notices it, the lens will melt. Your cherished keepsake will be ruined.
Remember many color wheels have run for more than fifty Christmases. That’s a great record. You wouldn’t expect a 55 Chevy to be running without a new motor and you shouldn’t expect your color wheel to be any different. You can be proud of carrying on a family tradition with a new motor. If that day has arrived for you, use our contact form for a free quote. We can bring your color wheel back to life or provide you with a freshly reincarnated model.
That’s all for now. Keep’em spinning!
Z