Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

Hi,

After plugging in the E640 to VM mini lithium battery pack and pressing the test button the unit was unresponsive then after few seconds a trail of smoke from the top started flowing!

On the previous day the unit was working fine with no pre-warnings. I immediately turned off the unit then turned it on again, and once again a trail of smoke re-appeared.

After scouring the forums I'm aware that other users have encountered a similar situation. I would like to know what's the main cause for this and how it can be fixed. This unit is my first purchase from PCB and quite frankly disappointed as it hasn't had more than 500 pops over the course of less than 1 year. Is the warranty still valid?

Currently, I'm overseas and want to know what's next.

Assuming the smoke is coming from within the flash unit itself (as opposed to small wisps from the diffusion dome), then the flash unit has a fault and will need to be repaired.

The unit has a two year warranty, so if it was purchased a year ago, then the warranty is still valid.

You can ship the light directly to us, but the return shipping will likely need to be to a US address, per our international sales policy. The process of getting your repair to us can be found here: http://www.paulcbuff.com/repair.php.

As for a specific cause for the smoke is hard to say without looking at it. Even after inspection, we can say what component failed, but not necessarily why.