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The animated gallery targets in our Lemax Spookytown Shooting Range quit moving, even though the sound and all light effects still worked fine. I was able to successfully repair my shooting range, so I thought I’d share some tips on what worked for me.
I searched for how to repair this, and found the following excellent repair guide (“Lemax Spookytown Shooting Range Tear down and Repair”) on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DYexpebphc
The above video starts with the gallery component already removed, so here are some photos of how I ended up removing the base for access to the gallery section.
The bottom foam pad was not coming off well for me, and I had a couple mis-steps in locating the right section to cut out. But if you look/feel for a recessed inner rectangle, you can cut out just some strips for access to the glued area. Once this area around the glue lines is removed, I found you can just pry up some of the glue beads, and most of the glue will just come out fairly cleanly.
After removing the glue beads, the whole gallery section starts to come out. However, be careful! Small wires are glued inside a compartment on the right of the gallery, preventing the gallery section from coming out.
I had to cut out an additional pad area around a hole on the bottom that gives access to the right-side compartment where my wires were glued to the bottom. I was able to carefully pry the glue off the bottom, keeping the black/red pair connected to a white pair of wires with a connector going to a circuit board in the right-side compartment.
You can then carefully remove the white connector from the board with a long pair of needle-nose pliers, inserted through the bottom hole.
Once the wires are freed and the connector is removed from the circuit board, the gallery section can be removed from the shooting range building. You may need to move the gears so the left-side swaying figure is in an upright or right position so you can get the gallery unit out of the opening.
Check the black elastic belt that goes between the motor shaft and the large pulley wheel. If either the elastic belt is broken or the motor was not working, replacements can be ordered from https://www.happyholidaysparts.com/ (SKU: LEMAXSPOOKYBELT or 183313020848, or search for “spooky town shooting range”). If the motor works, and the belt is OK (as both were in my case), the problem may be one of the gears being broken. As in the video referenced at the top of this article, this was the problem in my case.
Since I did not have a replacement gear, or a way to obtain one, I tried repairing the split gear I had. See the video for how to access the gear. In short, you remove the 6 larger screws on the plate with the motor and main drive pulley (no need to remove the smaller screws for the motor, unless you need to replace the motor). Be careful not to let the transmission gears drop out. Then remove the two screws for the bottom plate to access the broken gear.
I carefully cleaned then glued the gear back together on the spline of the shaft, using a special plastic super-glue (one specifically made for hard-to-glue plastics, like Loctite’s Plastics Bonding System – https://www.loctiteproducts.com/en/products/fix/super-glue/loctite_plasticsbondingsystem.html). I clamped the gear tightly back together around the shaft and let the super-glue cure overnight. I tested the movement within the gear transmission assembly – I did have to re-shape a couple of the gear teeth a bit with a jeweler’s file and exacto knife to get smooth operation. I then used epoxy glue to build up and strengthen the gear and its attachment to the shaft (I roughened up some of the exposed shaft before adding the epoxy).
After allowing the epoxy to fully cure, I used some plastic-safe light gear grease (used in model railroading) to ensure all gears were well lubricated. Then, after final testing for smooth operation, the gear transmission assembly can be re-assembled.
Plug the white wire connector back into the circuit board (it only goes one way), being careful to route the wires where they do not interfere with the gears. Test the full operation using the motor. Then be sure to leave the left-side swaying figure in an upright or right position so you can get the gallery section back into the building. I used a few spots of hot glue on the corners and front edge of the gallery base plate to secure the unit into the building base. Since I had left most of the bottom foam pad in place, I did not have to glue any foam back. My repair was complete!
A printable version of this page is available below.
Spookytown Shooting Range Repair.pdfPage updated
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