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Taking the I-90 Sphere out of the charger

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I have two of the chargers with the battery packs built in. I don’t have any issues getting my aids in or out. Most mornings I put my aids on in the dark.

I just played with mine a bit. I’m pretty sure the issue is technique. If you pull back on the aid instead of straight up there’s considerable resistance. If you’re meeting resistance try pulling aid slightly away from you and up. If that doesn’t do it, it’s likely the wrong charger or a malfunction. It’s not a magnet issue.

I find that barely damp (not wet) fingers give me the grip I need. I place them in the charger at night left then right, then remove them in the morning right then left. This lets me place the receiver wires where they won’t tangle on removal.

Thanks for the comments, folks! I am the OP. First of all, I looked at the product brochures so I can be precise what I meant with the items in the title of this thread.

  1. The official name of the I-90 Sphere is Phonak Audeo I-Sphere I90 (the e in Audeo is a French e with a forward slanted acute accent)
  2. The official name of the charger is Phonak ChargerGo SPH 1 (there is only this one charger that goes with the I-90 Sphere)

My understanding about the magnets is that there are magnets in the I-90 Sphere AND in the charger.

The magnets work together to align the body of the I-90 Sphere in the well of the charger (the snap-in effect, the I-90 Sphere won’t fall out if you hold the charger upside down)

The magnets further work together so that

  1. the charging pins at the bottom of the body of the I-90 Sphere (2 tiny protrusions)

are pressed on

  1. the charging electrodes at the bottom of the well of the charger (2 silvery metal surfaces)

to make the electrical connections secure (the I-90 Sphere charges even if you hold the charger upside down)

The magnets are very strong to perform the above functions very well. At the same time, the very strong magnets lead to less than good ergonomics (can make it more difficult to take the I-90 Sphere out of the charger, topic of this thread)

As I said in a previous posting, the best solution that I found sofar is to

  1. hold the charger upside down in my right hand (I am right handed)
  2. hold the top of the body of the I-90 Sphere between thumb and index finger of my left hand
  3. wiggle the charger while easing the I-90 Sphere down and out of the well of the charger

What I neglected to say in the previous posting is that the important thing to do is to break the magnetic force between the magnets at an ANGLE (and not just try to pry the magnets apart)

In spite of the trick, it takes me 10 to 20 seconds to get the I-90 Sphere out of the charger.

Maybe the skin of my thumb and index finger of the left hand is too dry and slippery. The ‘barely damp’ skin is a good suggestion, it makes me think of opening brand new thin plastic grocery bags, that’s easier to do if you have ‘barely damp’ skin, too! In any case, I will try out the suggestion with a small bottle of hand sanitizer next to the charger, thanks!

FWIW, I don’t think that there is any defect in play, so it’s useless to ask for a repair or replacement. I think that the issue is a deliberate trade off between good electrical functionality on the one hand and less than good ergonomics on the other hand which causes problems for some people :man_shrugging:

In no particular defence of Sonova, they had a real hardware problem with the previous generation of aids not maintaining continuous contact with the charging pins. I’m surmising, but part of the Sphere, more recent model design, would have included an improved interference fit onto the contacts.

The amount of ‘pull’ needed is different for some units than others, the hydrophobic coating can also make them slippery. There will also be variation in both the tooling for your particular set of aids and particular charger, you might just have a ‘set’ where the tolerance of the aids is at maximum, but the case is at minimum. So, it least from an engineering point of view, your audiologist isn’t absolutely correct.

Ask to ‘borrow/swap’ another (demo?) case for a week. It will become apparent fairly readily if it’s a ‘you’ or ‘them’ issue.

It is not an interference fit, it is a clearance fit with wiggle room.

In a previous post, I wrote about enlarging the wiggle room (well beyond manufacturing tolerances) but I hesitate to file away some plastic from the charger well. It is likely that Phonak has considered a larger charger well design, but chose not to for some reason. I hesitate because you just can’t make one wheel bigger on a car, the design as a whole has to be re-balanced.

@Sandovan said:

It is not an interference fit, it is a clearance fit with wiggle room.

It’s still a positional taper to maintain pressure on the battery contacts whose position/fixing was modified over the last model.

High/low tolerance mixes happen. It’s great you don’t get a problem, but the OP obviously does. Is there any harm in him trying a different charger?

There is no positional taper to maintain pressure on the battery contacts.

The battery contacts on the I-90 Sphere is at the bottom at the body, not on the side. The charger well is bigger than the body of the I-90, there is wiggle room. The I-90 does not fall out of the charger if you turn the charger upside down, because of the magnets, in spite of the charger well being bigger than the body of the I-90

The I-90 is positioned in the charger using magnets, it snaps in place. The magnets also exert the pressure on the battery contacts. That’s why the magnets are so strong.

P.S. I am the OP, BTW

Maybe one of the tools in a spudger pry tool set would help remove it. They’re made of plastic and designed to be used inside electronic equipment, so unlikely to damage the outside of your aids.

Pliers? Pry tool? No, just fingers :slight_smile: I just tried the ‘barely damp’ fingers idea by wetting and drying my fingers in the washroom, it works but that takes longer than 10 to 20 seconds with dry fingers :slight_smile:

I will just have a source of moisture right at the charger, like a hand sanitizer, nivea, baby moisturizer, etc.

I’ve owned the I90’s for over a year. I always thought the aids were difficult to remove from the charger, I could tell there were magnets, and I was always concerned about being lazy and grabbing the receiver wire instead of the unit. I somehow remember reading either in a manual or review when I first bought them, that the bodies were difficult to remove from the charger due to the placement magnets. Another pair from another company I owned before the Phonaks had a similar charger but no magnets, so no removal issue. I appreciate the need for the magnets, and I think it’s clearly a design flaw, but not worth not having the use of them.

I’d rather have the magnets and somewhat difficult to remove from the charger but secure electrical contacts …

… than no magnets and easy to remove HAs from the charger but sometimes discovering empty HAs in the morning because the HAs did not charge :-1:

There are workarounds that are not too inconvenient as discussed in this thread, but it would be more convenient if there was a release/eject button on the charger.

In reply to @Sandovan

As damp fingers helped, what about adding grip to the aids? You might use clear nail polish or Sugru or whatever else makes sense to you. You might be able to find a nondestructive option.

I try not to modify anything on such expensive products, as it can have unintended effects.

In the same vein, I have repurposed an eye dropper that I happen to have in my household and use plain tap water to moisturize my fingers. I do not fill the eyedropper with any of the moisturizer products that I mentioned earlier, because that can cause build up on the over time.

I still use my right hand to hold the charger upside down and wiggle it, but now my moist left thumb and index finger are grippier for easing the HA down and out. I can now take the HA out of the charger in 5 to 10 seconds :slight_smile:

More convenient and more precise than the repurposed eye dropper would be a plastic squeeze bottle with a fine metal needle tip that can dispense micro water droplets, but for now, I consider this issue solved :slight_smile:

Thanks to all who responded :+1: :+1:

You could try a moist foam pad often used to help counting money. These are sold under various names. Should add less moisture than the dropper. Note that some use some sort of chemical while other are just handy sponges one adds water to.

You could also try rubber fingertip covers, also used for counting money. Using those would be a dry process.

I have just joined the forum and interestingly I wrote to Phonak about this topic - namely difficulty lifting the ’s out of the charger without pulling on the wire. I suggested a slight ridge on both sides of the HA receiver that would make it easier. Phonak of course sent back a form email indicating that I should speak with my audiologist.

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