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Hearing Aid Recovery After Months of Drained Battery

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Hello Everyone, I am hoping that someone has some tricks, hacks or tips that will help resurrect one hearing aid of a pair of Starkey Muse IQ I12400 -R. Both ’s have been stored in the charger, without power, for the last eight months, I believe the HA’s worked fine when they were last used. One of the HA’s charged fine and appears to work properly. The other does not charge and the charger flashes red five times then green then red five times. I suspect that the lithium ion battery has drained so low that the charger recognizes it as faulty. I have seen youtube videos about recovering batteries from cordless drills. Those videos show that applying a small charge from a charged battery can give the dead battery enough charge for the charger to recognized the battery as good and start charging.
The charger appears to work fine. I can charge the good HA in either port and the bad HA generates the same red flashing lights in either port. I have tried to read the voltage between the charging contacts on the HA and the charger but I don’t know if there is voltage present when the HA/charge magnetic connection is not made. Does anyone know the voltage that the chargers deliver? Does anyone have any idea how much it would cost to have these HA’s repaired?

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I would definitely not try that. You could seriously damage that aid. Just replace the battery properly. That trick of rejuvenating a dead battery makes changes in the battery by causing some of the crystals that form and create a short to dissolve. I would be very leery to try in on your battery because it is so small. that trick is meant for larger batteries. Just do a search for hearing aid repair services in your area.

These are probably 6 years old by now. It’s probably not worth it spending a three-figure amount for professional repairs. I’d say go for it! Not much to lose!

I got hold of older Starkey a few months ago. Both batteries were dead. They were standard Li-Ion button cells with a nominal voltage of 3.6V and a charging voltage of 4.2V.

I tried charging the batteries using the trick you describe. However, I didn’t connect to the charger pins, but instead I had opened up the HAs and connected directly to the button cell.

It was no use though. Both batteries were completely dead and could not be revived.

I ended up buying replacement batteries on AliExpress for less than $10. Replacing them required a decent soldering iron with a very fine tip.

The HAs work fine now and are in regular use.

Edited

Spending 3 figures to have a working pair of is more affordable than a range of 4 figures to buy new ones if the user isn’t interested in spending big money to have the newest, most highly-touted thing, though.
That model had auto-on, I suspect they were in the charger with that feature enabled when it was unplugged and stored. I’m surprised that 1 aid charges!

I guess that’s also true…

Found a picture from when I replaced the battery. The wire sticking out to the right comes from the battery and still needs to be soldered to the PCB on top.

IMG_8321

Thanks everyone for your input. I don’t think I will be opening this myself. These belonged to my mother until her passing. I accompanied her to all her HA visits and was with her when she purchased these and all the other sets. I was hoping to avoid trip to the hearing aid place. I may give them a call to get an idea on price. I like the picture of the HA battery and PCB. Wow. I have made solder joints to what I thought was small circuits but that is beyond me.
Thanks for you input.

Please accept my condolences on the loss of your mother.

You might consider donating her hearing aids to Lion’s International if you don’t need them yourself, and they’ll give you a receipt for your donation (for tax purposes).

Have you tried using the button on the hearing aid while it’s in the charger? Like holding it in one position or the other for a minute for example while in the charger.

I am not familiar with that aid, just throwing an idea to try out there.

Thanks for the suggestion. I just tried that with no success. I just ordered some desiccant capsules to dry the aids. Its a “shot in the dark”.

Drying the aids is a smart move. In a bag with rice works in a pinch.
Do the aids charging contacts look clean? Have you tried both sides of that charger?
Good luck

@wrschum , I’m afraid, I don’t think there is much hope to achieve anything by drying them. But it also won’t hurt.

I think your original idea is most promising - trying to kick-start charging with another voltage source. If you don’t want to open the , maybe you can try the following. Cut two narrow aluminum foil strips and place them over each of the two pins in your charger so that the foil creates a conductor to make those pins more accessible.

image

Then insert your working HA with the aluminum strips in place. Make sure they still charge and measure the voltage on the aluminum strips. That should tell you the correct polarity.

Now you can try to apply a small voltage directly to the two charging pins on the defective HA. Two AA batteries in series (producing 3.0V) should be very safe. With a lot of luck, maybe you can actually revive it…

I like that idea. :grimacing: I have tried to hold the two ’s together by touching the charging contacts together. Making sure that the polarity was correct based in the orientation of the HA’s when in the charger but had no luck. I will try that when I get home. Thanks

I’m in love with this whole thread and looking forward to finding out whether the jump start is successful.

Well, I tried the aluminum foil trick that @wtolkien suggested and I could get some actual voltage readings. The charger delivers 5VDC when charging. When a functional is charging the voltage remains constant. When a faulty HA is in the charge the voltage cycles between 0VDC and 5VDC. You can watch a video of the test here8. The voltage cycle follows the green and red LED cycles.
My assumption is that the accumulation of the 5VDC cycles is similar to a jump start from another battery. So, a battery jump start will not recover this hearing aid.
I have also stored the hearing aid in a medicine bottle with two desiccant packs for 24 hours prior to this test and found no change in functionality.
By the way, I found that taping foil to the HA was easier than getting foil located in the charger.

Interesting - that likely means that the hearing aids have their battery management system (BMS) built-in.
The BMS’s job is the regulate charging (correct voltage and current) but also to monitor the battery for faults. Since your battery’s voltage is likely near zero, the BMS will see that as a fault condition and will refuse to charge.
Unfortunately this means that ‘jump-starting’ the via the external charger pins will be impossible. The BMS will prevent it.

You’d have to go the same route I went - open up the HAs and connect directly to the coin cell inside.

However: I really don’t think there is much hope. The HAs are old, meaning the batteries are likely worn down anyways. When I tried to jump-start the batteries in my old Starkeys, one battery refused to charge altogether - the charging voltage stayed near zero. The other one did charge (voltage went up), but it wasn’t able to hold any charge. After removing the charger, the voltage dropped back to zero within minutes.

Have you tried how long your ‘good’ HA remains powered on? Will it last a full day?

Yes, hearing aid batteries have an internal set of chips for their BMS.
I know as I took apart a Lion rechargeable battery for a Widex hearing aid and found 2 integrated circuit chips.
when I looked up the markings on the chips they turned out to be designed for Lion BMS

Edited

Update: I had the repaired by the shop that they were purchased at. ~$500 for the repair. I had my hearing tested at four different HA shops and got similar results, relatively. My hearing loss would be considered mild with the greatest loss between 5KHZ to 6KHZ. Worse my left ear. Anyway, that shop programmed the HAs for me and after four days of use I believe I need larger receiver cables because the HA shell sits too high on ears. I have found a few sources on line but I don’t understand the sizing for these receivers. The sizes are listed from 1 to 5. I know I need to increase to size 4 or 5 but how do I know? Is there a chart somewhere that explains how to measure Starkey snap fit receivers?

If my question belongs on another thread please let me know.

@wrschum said:

after four days of use I believe I need larger receiver cables because the HA shell sits too high on ears.

What makes you think they are too highs? Discomfort, pressure sores? Keep on mind that directionality is more effective when 2 mics in one hearing aid are aligned horizontally parallel to the ground.

Widex SmartRIC 440 advice from DIY
[image] I highly recommend that articles:

I believe the length on the receiver cable causes the dome to pull out of place when the shell sits naturally on my ear(s) . Meaning the receiver cable feels too short. Also, I put reading glasses on and off many times and the shell gets moved and pulled during removal..

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