A few years ago I received a portable, hand-held massager as a gift. I used it for about a year and a half on my body to help with sore muscles. When the batteries got low and the unit stopped working, I would plug it into the wall charger and it would take an hour to charge. One day it stopped working and charging had no effect on it.
Research was done on the internet but nothing beneficial resulted. As with most things I wanted to repair it myself. I looked over the unit for ways to dismantle and didn’t see any screw holes anywhere. For months I did nothing with it and two weeks ago I tried again. there were three parts of the unit in a straight line and I tried twisting them apart by hand. Nothing budged so it was placed in a tool vice on my workbench. Pliers were used to twist it apart and I could see a battery of three cells with two circuit boards. I measured the voltage and it was about 8 volts and the label stated 11volts. A new battery was ordered and when it arrived, it was temporarily connected to the massager and it took off vibrating.
Now I know the battery is the problem it had to be removed from the circuit. I had to de-solder the circuit board from the old battery and wire it into the new one. Also I had to cut a wire between the 2 cells and re-wire 2 others. I got it going and connected it to the other circuit board temporarily. It worked when the power button was activated which was great.
The battery was put pack into the case and during this time the battery got shorted with sparks and something on the circuit board blew. I measured the battery voltage and it was correct so I knew the circuit board was gone.
All that work was lost and the massager was tossed in the trash. I did save the battery for other projects. Next time, I will be more cautious putting devices back together so circuit boards don’t blow.
