Capacitor failure is a fairly common occurrence with e-Spyder's. Capacitor failure can be diagnosed by the sear not releasing the striker when pulling the trigger. This is due to the capacitor not providing the solenoid with enough power to hit the sear with sufficient inertia to release the sear from the striker. You have a few choices as a resolve.....you may:

1) Call Kingman and arrange to send your marker to them for warranty repairs....

2) Do some crumby ghetto nickel mod to lessen the travel of the solenoid hat....or

3) Simply replace it yourself....

If your warranty is up, I will certainly not show you the way to a crumby ghetto mod but will show you how to replace the capacitor in this article.

Signs Of A Bad Capacitor

If the Java 9.6v battery has been completely charged, you pull the trigger and your marker clicks but doesn't shoot, chances are you have a bad capacitor on the board. This does not pertain if you are using a regular 9v battery because Spyder's were not meant to be operated using a regular 9v battery. The power is depleted very quickly with the regular 9v and you will have a similar result as described above.

I have seen some capacitors with one wire that's loose or pulled from the capacitor body. Since the wires are one single thick strand, at times you can't even tell that the wire is loose unless you jiggle it. This will cause the marker to intermittently work and not work.

Another sign that the capacitor is bad is to look at the aluminum end of the capacitor. If the aluminum end is bowed out, it's a sign that it's been overheated and fried. This bowed condition of the aluminum end is illustrated in the photograph below.

 Removing The Old And Installing The New Capacitor

You'll need to begin this process by first removing the board from the trigger frame. Start by removing the left grip from the frame. Remove the battery from the battery harness. Remove the plastic wire plug connector housings from the board connectors. You can either try to remove the plug connectors by hand or you may try to use a tool such as hemostats, a small screwdriver or needle nose pliers. Be very careful not to pinch or tug on the wires or you may pull them from the pin connectors housed inside the plug connector housings. Now you can remove the two screws holding the board to the trigger frame. Your board should resemble the boards in the top photograph when removing it from the frame.

Take a close look at the way the wires are routed to the board from the capacitor. This is important because you must twist the capacitor in a left hand motion to get it back into place after replacing it. Grab the back of the capacitor and twist it to the right and back to the left again to get a feel for how it should be emplaced once you solder the new one in. Since it has such a tight fit in the trigger frame, it must be fitted tightly against the board as it was initially shown in the first photograph below. Take care to memorize which board receptacle you pulled the plug connectors from as well.

Twist the capacitor to the right and let it hang perpendicular from the board as shown in the second photograph above. Having a small soldering station to hold the board as shown above will make things much easier to work with. If you don't have one, make best with what you have available. If you have any fears of soldering, it's not really that difficult. There are tips to assist you in the Secrets Of Soldering article in the SPPS tech section. Touch the pre-heated soldering iron tip to the center of the wire attachment point on the board while pulling the capacitor wire at the same time. Do this to one wire at a time until both are removed. You want to leave the soldering iron tip on the board the least amount of time as possible, so try to work fast. The board should look similar to the third photograph above at this point.

There is a short and long wire protruding from the capacitor. The short wire goes into the round marking on the top of the board and the long wire to the square marking on the top of the board as depicted in the third photograph above. Don't mix these up or you'll render the board inoperable.

Starting with the long wire, position it in the center of the square marking on the board with the board inverted so the bottom is facing upwards similar to the second photograph above. Hold the tip of the soldering iron in the corresponding area on the bottom of the board. While heating the leftover solder, push the capacitor wire end into the board hole until the wire protrudes through. Do the same thing to the short wire through the round hole board marking. You'll need to kink the longer wire slightly to do so. Once both wires are through the correct attachment holes in the board, solder a very small portion of .032 diameter rosin-core solder to the protruding wire ends. As aforementioned, try to work this as quickly as possible to avoid overheating the board. Make sure the fresh solder points of these wires are not touching each other or they will create a short in the board.

The wires may protrude through the bottom on the board more than you'd like them to. You may file these down a bit by holding the file stationary while scraping the excess off by moving them across the file. You might want to leave about 1/32" at most protruding from the bottom of the board.

Grasping the end of the capacitor, you may now twist it to the left as you practiced earlier to snug it back into place next to the board. Be careful not to twist it so much that you pull the wire from the capacitor or you'll have to perform this whole process once again. Reinstall everything back together in the reverse order that you removed it then test it.

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Technical Information