Flash Fix or Maybe Not

I have decided I want to start messing about with lighting in my pictures a little more and so have been on the look out for a cheap option. Recently I won (I hate that term, when actually you are buying something) a flash on an internet auction site.

Sadly a couple of days later the seller contacted me and told me that when he re-tested the flash before packing it was dead. He gave me a full refund and insisted on sending the flash through anyway in case I wanted any of the bits that went with it and to show that he was not going to actually resell it.

Today the dead flash arrived. I decided to take it apart to see if there were any loose wires or something. On opening a whole range of bits flew about the room. I managed to find them all quickly with the exception of a very small spring. After a bit of crawling around with a torch I found it.

After using all my electronics know how and seeing no loose wires, I then tried to put it all back together only for at the point of getting the last part connected for it to fly back back out and the spring to ping out into oblivion.

I have given up both looking for the spring and trying to get the flash working now and have left it for one of the little cellar engineers to have a play with. I think it is destined for the bin though. In the meantime I have won another flash!