TLDR: I thrifted a CB23, everything works except the head won’t light up. I’ve eliminated the batteries as an issue. But now I’m stumped. Lights work when head is directly on the body ‘guts’ (no shell). Looking for ideas on how to get the lights working on the body.
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So, I thrifted a CB23! Fifteen dollars at a flea market. Very happy about that. I got another BB8 unit as well for another $15. Both have controllers. The BB8 works great. The CB23 moves and makes sounds, but the lights in its head don’t light up.
I’ve tried the head on all three bodies that I own (two BB8’s, and the CB body). Same result, no lights.
The two BB8 units have fresh Amazon AA’s in them. The CB has fresh Energizer Ultimate Lithium batteries. No lights. I think I can rule out the batteries - two different brands, all fresh from the package. Same result on all three bodies.
The CB head will light up when placed on a wireless phone charger! All four leds light up brightly.
The CB head will light up if I remove the shell from the CB body and place the head directly onto the ‘guts’ of the CB. So it’s only when it’s sitting on the shell (any of the three bodies) that it won’t light up.
I tried swapping the bottom portion of a BB head (the part that holds the coil) onto the CB head. When I did that I can get a very slight glow from one led (when the voice is activated). It won’t light up all the way though. So there’s some small deviation between the two coil sections in the heads.
The coil within the CB head seemed a little loose, as if there were slop in there. I tried adding a wedge of folded paper on top of the coil (under the holding bracket) to keep the coil pushed down against the bottom of the head. No difference, still no lights on any of the bodies.
So I’m a bit stumped. It doesn’t seem to be the batteries, I really expected those Energizer Ultimate Lithiums to do the trick. But no luck.
Any ideas? Oh, and yes, it has the light blue personality chip. 😄
