Replacing the battery in my Oral-B electric toothbrush

Рет қаралды 54,473

4 жыл бұрын

Tearing down a Braun Oral-B electric toothbrush, and replacing/upgrading the battery inside. The battery in these (or at least in my two) is a single AA nickel-metal hydride cell (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel%...) with a capacity of 1000mAh, and, unfortunately, they can suffer from loss of capacity due to lots of repeated partial discharge. You can usually reverse this by performing a few full discharge/recharge cycles, but that's not really an option when the cell is hardwired into a device.
I had no idea how to pull one of these apart when I began, but thankfully it turned out to be pretty easy, although getting it working again was a bit weird. I probably should have charged the new battery before installing (which I did for my second one) but, hey, you live and learn.
Any feedback is welcome. (and sorry for the audio quality in this one, new mic has arrived so no more booms in future!)
Buy me a cider - www.buymeacoffee.com/silvestron
Equipment used!
Soldering station: Hakko FX-888d
Desolder braid: goot wick CP-2015
Multimeter: Jaycar QM-1321
Disclaimer!
I am NOT an expert, I have genuinely NO idea what I'm doing, and mostly just glue things together and use a lot of Google-fu until stuff works. I've been tinkering with electronics since I was a kid, but have no formal training and will probably do things incorrectly. If you learn something from this, that's awesome, but trust me - I'm learning too!

Пікірлер: 36

@silvestronsbitsandbytes 2 жыл бұрын

Just over two years have passed since this vid now, and I have an update! The batteries installed in this video have also now stopped taking a charge, and needed a replacement. I've once again replaced the cells and the toothbrushes are both back in action. Two years lifetime for around $10 and less waste in landfill is definitely worthwhile in my eyes!

@michellerobinson5855 6 ай бұрын

What cells?

@simonkravis2592 9 ай бұрын

This a very useful instructional video that shows all the missteps which accompany any repair job - others I've looked at for other purposes edit them out, and the most difficult parts are often not shown. The device being worked on frequently differs from the one shown in ways that are not evident until you pull them apart and dealing with this can be hair-raising! (Latest job was a vacuum cleaner motor replacement - a generic motor did not cost much more than the replacement brushes which were all that were needed.)

@michellerobinson5855 6 ай бұрын

Finally got it started. Took forever. Your video helped

@silvestronsbitsandbytes 6 ай бұрын

That's awesome, glad I could help :D

@4RaFaeL8 2 жыл бұрын

My button stopped working and bless this video for helping me take this thing apart and put it back together

@silvestronsbitsandbytes 2 жыл бұрын

Glad I could help!

@nielsanderson6634 3 жыл бұрын

Hello there I Very Much like your smooth voice and the clear way you explain the issues at hand Just because of the nice sound of your voice and the fact that you are really A handy tinkerer with the ability to Fix everything mecanical or Electric device commonly used around the house! KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK I AM GREATFUL FOR I HAVE BEEN ABLE TO FIX MY BRAUN TOOTBBRUSH! CAN YOU MAYBE DO AN EPISODE ABOUT DE VALVE AMPLIFIERS THE ONES FOR GUITARS AND AMPS OF CLASS A BUILDING KITS FOR EXAMPLE THE ALIEXPRESS OF CHINA Greetings of Niels Anderson from Amsterdam Holland

@PaulBenjaminPhoto 4 жыл бұрын

Spudger vs plastic casing, name a more iconic matchup...

@StopWhining491 2 ай бұрын

Realizing that you've got to be careful to retain the seal, it still doesn't seem like it should be so hard to replace the batteries. Maybe Braun wants to make it so hard that you just buy a new toothbrush.

@adcrane 2 жыл бұрын

Great little vid. I wish I watched it before I did exactly the same as you did today, with a totally flat batter from Jaycar.

@silvestronsbitsandbytes 2 жыл бұрын

Thanks, I appreciate it! I wouldn't expect the toothbrush to need such a fully charged battery to run, but here we are!

@johnmay469 3 жыл бұрын

Great video. Thanks. Job done successfully thanks to this. Best. J.

@annemiller5131 9 ай бұрын

Don't know if this came up elsewhere, but the original instruction leaflet shows how to insert the top into the hole at the back of the base and twist to remove the top.

@silvestronsbitsandbytes 8 ай бұрын

That's interesting! Out of curiosity from your comment (and also because after 5 years mine's getting a bit gross in general) I just bought a replacement identical toothbrush, but the instruction sheet doesn't have any instruction like this. I also can't see any hole or place in the base to insert the top. Perhaps it's a regional deviation in the product that isn't available here?

@daweitowalk 2 жыл бұрын

Hi Simon, I just replaced the battery in my exactly the same oral b model with a 2500mah ni-mh battery following your video instructions. From 600mah to 2500mah is more than four fold jump. I wonder if it will also take 4 times amount of time to fully recharge the new battery? I think it is important to get the charge time right to maximise the lifespan of the new ni-mh battery. What did your experience with Sanyo 1900mah tell you? Thanks.

@silvestronsbitsandbytes 2 жыл бұрын

Since the toothbrush just sits on charge all day in the carrier when not in use, charging isn't really much of a problem. Anecdotally, it now lasts longer off charge, ie when I go away for a weekend. Also, my name is Nick :-)

@daweitowalk 2 жыл бұрын

@@silvestronsbitsandbytes My bad haha. It was a different video I watched. Nevertheless, my question is relevant. Sitting on the charger all day is probably shortening the battery lifespan which sort of defeats the purpose of replacing the battery in the first place, don't you think?

@silvestronsbitsandbytes 2 жыл бұрын

@@daweitowalk ah sorry I missed your reply! Yes you are right, sitting on the charger is generally bad for the battery. Having said that, I've just now (two and a bit years later) needed to replace the batteries added in this video with some new ones again. Two years life on a battery that's being charged all day and used 1-2 times a day every day. You could probably extend the life by only charging every other or so day, but I'm just too lazy to think about that :)

@daweitowalk 2 жыл бұрын

@@silvestronsbitsandbytes In Australia, most power outlets have individual switches, which makes it easier to control the length of time the battery gets charged even if you leave your toothbrush on the charger all the time. I am still in the process of working out how many hours it takes for a Duracel AA 2500mah in the same Oral B toothbrush to reach full capacity from empty. Once full, it should last for about two weeks.

@nilobualoy117 4 жыл бұрын

How many volts is battery and what is the size of ni mh battery and mah?

@silvestronsbitsandbytes 4 жыл бұрын

Nominal battery voltage is 1.2V. The factory battery was 1000mAh, and I replaced them with 2000mAh batteries.

@Gabrielsilva-qi2jq 3 жыл бұрын

hello can I use Li-Ion battery?

@silvestronsbitsandbytes 3 жыл бұрын

I'd say no - the charging circuitry required for NiMH/NiCad vs Li-Ion are totally different. It would at best not charge at all, and at worst possibly (though very unlikely) rupture the battery causing a fire

@Gabrielsilva-qi2jq 3 жыл бұрын

@@silvestronsbitsandbytes thanks!

@r_apex 3 жыл бұрын

what is that @9:00? - something like a ribbon.

@silvestronsbitsandbytes 3 жыл бұрын

Desolder wick - it's a copper braid soaked in flux, when you apply heat and the flux melts it attracts the solder from the joint up into the braid.

@r_apex 3 жыл бұрын

thanks

@sylviacantin2722 2 жыл бұрын

ma brosse est braum advance power

@huseyindemirel7228 3 жыл бұрын

seizer BRAUN ist nicht guter aparat wegen batarii ! ((

@huseyindemirel7228 3 жыл бұрын

fack BRAUNN (

@yeroca 2 жыл бұрын

I wouldn't trust the 2000mah rating on a Chinese battery. Chinese manufacturers are notorious for overrating their batteries. A recent test of three brands of 18650 batteries from China showed their capacity was between 10% and 13% of the rated energy, in other words almost 10X less than their stated capacity on the label. Japanese and Korean batteries (Panasonic, Sony, LG, and Samsung) fared much better, at around 98% to 103% of their stated capacity. Stay away from Chinese batteries until they get their act together and start telling the truth.

@silvestronsbitsandbytes 2 жыл бұрын

Yep, agreed. They also have a habit of suddenly going boom. In this case, it's a AA NiMh which are all roughly the same quality these days, and such low draw that the quality doesn't really matter. I was able to go into a local shop and pick it up over the counter in a ~15 minute round trip from home, so convenience > quality!

@yeroca 2 жыл бұрын

@@silvestronsbitsandbytes good points. A bit ago, I tried to see if I could find some non-Chinese NiMH batteries on Amazon... No such luck. Apparently they no longer produced. Thanks for the video, by the way 👍

@jayl2499 2 жыл бұрын

Just buy the highest mAh available to be safe. You get at least 10% out of the total rating.

@rwryder1 7 ай бұрын

Yeah, I've had similar experience!! 😞