How to use a Cold Spark Machine – Cold Spark Machine Instructions (CryoFX®)
Cold Spark Machine Instructions: How to Use a Cold Spark Machine
What’s up guys, Chris here with CryoFX. Today’s video is how to use a cold spark machine. How to use it, you don’t know how to use it, all you know is what you see here. You just want to know how to use it. So, we’re going to make this super short, super sweet. I did another video on cold spark machine repair or instructions. That goes super in detail from start to finish. So, this video, we’re just talking about how to use a cold spark machine. Therefore, let’s jump right in now, how to use it.
Equipment Used For the Cold Spark Machine
You have your power cord, your other cord, you have your granules here. Your cards, couple different cards. These are for sparkler machines, this machine specifically is iSpark effects M3 M4 mini. They’re the same, they just do different heights.
This is the card that goes with that, and then you have your granules, like I already said, you have your wireless remote receiver and your wireless remote. Some machines have the wireless remote receiver inside the machine. These do not, and you have your manual button, obviously DMX cord and DMX controller.
So, not going to get in the details on these because I just want to show you how to use the cold spark machine from start to finish quickly.
Using the Granules
What you’ll do is you’ll go ahead, and you’ll open your cold spark machine up as such. When you open it up, I have these granules that I use from an earlier video, but you’ll open your new pack. You’ll go ahead and have your card ready and these granules here, like I said from another video, these were just taken out of a bag. I just have to make that preface here because you want the bag sealed. You don’t want these out in the open to collect dust, to collect grime, and they get messed up by humidity.
So, I’ll go ahead, I’ll put these in the cold spark machine as such in the top here. Kind of brush those other ones in, brush the other ones off the machine. I’m going to put this cap on, boom! Not putting it on all the way because we’re going to be accessing that again here in a minute.
Connecting the Power Cord
Take your power cord, power cord is already plugged into the wall, so I’m going to plug it into the machine here. While it’s on, I’m going to keep explaining. The power cord does not need to go into a GFI or GCFI or ACFI, whatever those fancy terms are. Put it straight into a power plug, that’s it. If you put it into any of these other breakers or a surge protector, it may trip it. Just don’t do that, okay? Then I have my manual cord here. For the video, I’m using this manual cord.
Here’s one end, here’s the other. I take this, I plug it in. now if you want to come closer, the cold spark machine itself says warming up. While it’s warming up, I’m going to go through the menu section here.
Machine settings
Next one you set your DMX address, the next one is volume out, it’s at 91. The higher the volume percentage, the higher the spark, lower the volume percentage, the lower the spark. Tip over, you always want that on. If it’s off, the machine can tip over and still spray, going to mess the machine up. It needs to work in the upright position.
You would rather not spray sparks in somebody’s face that would be a horrible time. Manual test, I could manually test it. It’s still warming up, so I’m not going to do that here, and then of course back to the beginning of the menu functions. So, about it, your fuse, your on-off switch update right there. Normally, you won’t use that. However, if there is an update, or we release any updates, we’ll let you know about that.
Other machines have those. Pro blitz, blitz, x phoenix, a lot of other machines out there. Sparkler, some of them may have this, some of them may not. Your DMX, we’re not using that here and of course, if you want to daisy-chain these, the most important thing here is you want to look at this.
How to Calculate Your Proper Circuit Load
This cold spark machine here is AC120 60 Hertz, eight Amps. Case in point guys, A times V equals W so, Amps times Volts equals Watts. If you have one of those legs missing, you can always figure out the equation. So, if I don’t know what the Amps are, but I know what the Watts is, I take the Watts divided by the Volts, I get the Amps. The Watts, divided by the Amps, equals the Volts. The Volts times he Amps equals Watts. A times V equals W.
Why is this important? This is significant because if you put too many of these machines on one circuit, you’re going to blow the circuit. Circuit breakers are meant to blow and to trip, if I should say the correct terms. This is so that you don’t cause a fire and melt the building down and melt the wires down and all of those things. So, don’t hook too many of these up. Now, this is eight Amps. If you’re on a 20 amp breaker, eight times three is 24. Too many.
Eight times two is sixteen you have four Amps to spare, that’s great. Don’t overload your circuits. Two of these on one 20 amp circuits, and you’re going to be fine. In other machines that are more powerful, it may be a 10 amp that’s pushing it. Even though it’s a 20 amp breaker, if anything else is on that breaker, it’s probably going to trip it. So, you would rather not do that. Keep in mind eight times V equals W. keep in mind also, what type of machine you have. Some circuit breakers are 30 Amps, some are 40. Anyways enough on that.
Operating the Cold Spark Machine with Wireless Remotes
If you will be using the wireless remote, you’re going to have problems because sometimes frequencies interrupt with these this would be plugged in where this cord is, and you would have a red light on right now. The red light means still heating. The green light, which is not on either this controller or this other one because clearly it’s not plugged in. Why would it be on? That will light up when it’s ready and also here. It will say ‘ready to use’ which actually ready to work. It just says that.
Now, you can look at another video now, it’s ready, I will go ahead and press this button. If you have the wireless connected, you press this, boom! Voilà! Isn’t it pretty? So, now you’ve used it, you’ve done what you need to do, time to take it down. How to use the cold spark machine the right way is what we’re talking about here. Turn it off, disconnect, do this. Not going to do this on this video, I do it on other videos, but you’ll take this upside down, and you’ll empty the granules out into a container.
You want to make sure that those go right into a bag, get the air out of the bag. No moisture in there, no nothing like that because it will ruin it. I want to do this quickly because I want to get back online here, so I can show you what the rest of the procedures are. So, you connect the rest of the cords, turn it back on, and should probably take another minute.
Using the Cards
Just to let me know it’s ready because it’s still pretty hot, these things cool down fast so if I didn’t say this already I may have skipped it, realizing this now this cold spark machine already has time on it. These cards put the time on the machine. I’m not going to do that here, but you would take a card, and you would just put the card up to this RFID section on the machine. So, it would actually be this card.
I just don’t want to do that here because this card won’t work. It’s already been used. One time use on the cards, that’s it. The time on the cold spark machine equals, normally, the time that it takes for the granules to completely be used in the machine. Now, as you’re emptying and putting granules back in, that time on the machine is 15 minutes. The actual pack itself may only work 12 minutes, going to give you extra time.
Cleaning Out Granules after Use
You can contact us and just get a pack of granules after a series of these, compound into one, it’s ready to use. Now why are we going to get the rest of these granules out? This top chamber was already emptied. There are still granules in the funnel, and they’re still granules in the heating element. You don’t want to leave them there. So, you go in, just get the rest of them out like this.
Keep going, what’s happening now is the granules are coming out from the funnel. So all those granules that are inside that funnel would have normally come out. Why you’re seeing granules still come out is because I didn’t empty it. If I had emptied it, they would have been gone already. You can move the cold spark machine a little bit more, get more granules out.
You keep doing that until there’s no more granules left in the machine and no more blow out of the machine or very little blowout. Then you can take the machine, turn it off, disconnect, boom! How to use a cold spark machine. Simple as that.
Conclusion – Using the Cold Spark Machine
We have more detailed instructions on other videos that I have linked to here or on the channel. But that’s simplistic instructions on how to use the cold spark machine. How to do it, put everything away, and you’re ready to use it next time. I’m Chris, this is CryoFX. Go ahead and hit the like button. Show some appreciation for the video. Other people don’t know how to use these. Hitting that like button gets it in front of more people. Thank you, guys, and until next time we’ll see you later.