Personalizer Plus possibly broken?

[JPSWorks]

Hello everyone,

It's been a while since I last posted. Been making knives slowly but mostly busy with family and life.

I have an issue with my Personalizer Plus I was hoping others might be able to help me with. Even though I have been searching Google until I'm blue in the face I am unable to find much information at all about the Personalizer Plus unit nor can I find the answer to my question. I tried to find the manual that came with it to see if there was any information about it but of course I cannot locate it. I'm hoping you guys can help me.

Tonight I was trying to use the etching unit and all it does is hum loudly when the dial it turned on. The only light that comes on solid is the red one. Normally I see the yellow or green light. I can switch it back and forth from mark to etch, however no other light comes on. If I turn up the dial for very long the fuse will blow.

I opened up the unit to take a look inside to see if anything obvious stood out. Possibly a bad solder joint, or a swollen capacitor or whatever they are called. Unfortunately I don't have a very good knowledge of electronics.

If possible would anyone be able to take a picture of the internals of their machine? I can try to take one here in a minute and post it up if that will help. Or if anyone still has the manual would you please let me know if it states what is going on with the solid red light?

Thanks in advance!!

John

 

[JeremyBartlett]

I'm pretty good with electronics, the humming sound is probably coming from an induction coil or the transformer...my guess is that it's the coil. Did you smell the board to see if it smells burnt? Go ahead and post a pic of the top and bottom of the board

Sent from my SM-N915V using Tapatalk

 

[JPSWorks]

I'm pretty good with electronics, the humming sound is probably coming from an induction coil or the transformer...my guess is that it's the coil. Did you smell the board to see if it smells burnt? Go ahead and post a pic of the top and bottom of the board

Sent from my SM-N915V using Tapatalk

Thank you for the response. I don't really smell anything but that doesn't mean I didn't fry something.

I updated the post above with pics. There are a bunch of pics of the back side of the dial where I'm not sure if there used to be a connection between two points. Also, I put a video of the humming and red light on instagram in the link below.

John

 

[JeremyBartlett]

Just checked out the video and the pics. I took the lid off of mine and there is definitely not supposed to be anything on that one spot on the back of the dial. Looks like someone accidently touched it with their soldering iron while putting it together. I have a feeling the transformer is shot. If you happen to have a multimeter, and know a little bit about using it, you can test the voltage between the green/yellow and one of the green wires. Make sure it is set to DC voltage and on the next biggest number above 24 on your meter. While on, you should get 24 volts if it is working right.

 

[JPSWorks]

Just checked out the video and the pics. I took the lid off of mine and there is definitely not supposed to be anything on that one spot on the back of the dial. Looks like someone accidently touched it with their soldering iron while putting it together. I have a feeling the transformer is shot. If you happen to have a multimeter, and know a little bit about using it, you can test the voltage between the green/yellow and one of the green wires. Make sure it is set to DC voltage and on the next biggest number above 24 on your meter. While on, you should get 24 volts if it is working right.

Thanks again for the response. I will look for my multimeter in the morning and try to test it out. I'll try to follow your steps.

John

 

[JPSWorks]

I wanted to post an update. It is fixed and I successfully etched a blade last night! The issue ended up being a bad bridge rectifier. Replaced it and it runs prefect again!

Thanks for everyone's input.