LED poi fix

Had a problem with my poi today, didn't see anything here on it, but I figured out how to fix it so thought I'd share.

Have the rainbow LED poi I got here on HoP. Today one of them seemed to be missing a color. Would cycle through a few colors, go dark, come back in to the cycle. What I found was inside the battery tube there is a ground on both sides. I guess after bouncing off the walls, ceiling, and occasionally my head the tube had shifted or warped a bit and one side wasn't making good contact.

Pulled out the batteries, and the tube with the chip and LED attached to the end can be slid out. It's a little tight but it can be done. Trim down the tube a hair, stick it all back together, and problem solved. Got all the colors back.

Flowtoys FTW

Thought about getting some flowtoys, but I'm a little concerned about the durability. I still screw up on a regular basis, and don't know how well they would hold up to my abuse.

These LED poi are kinda squishy and have taken a serious beating before I had to fix them, and even now they're good as new. That and when they do finally give out I won't be out much money. Spent less on my entire setup than one flowlight.

My friend recently got those LED poi balls and then loaned them out to a friend who is tough on poi. When the batteries were low she didn't bother to change them and screwed in the battery door tighter and tighter to attempt to make the batteries last longer. Now my friend has the poi back and they are having lots of color and battery problems. Will the fix that you did for the LED balls work for my friend?

only way to fix that is to fix that friends brain and get him/her to pay for a new pair

you don't screw up your mates toys come on

It won't fix that. You might be able to take them apart and find out what's wrong with them, but I would guess the board is cracked, no fix for that.

Long ago I used to use this type of glow poi regularly (eventually I switched over to Flowtoys and have never regretted it--they're worth their weight in gold). I had this same issue with the contact of the ground to the metal strips on either side of the battery compartment. My solution was to add a small sliver of aluminum foil between the spring and the battery.

Really, once this issue with the light blinking in and out starts up it's only a matter of time before the contact fails entirely, but I usually found that adding the sliver of foil gave me an additional two to three months of use before the glow ball really reached this point.