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CIC repair, why no superglue?

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Hello,
The faceplate popped off my hearing aid. In searching through this forum, it seems there’s no love for superglue. Why is that? Is there a recommended way to repair one?
Thanks.

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I totally use superglue all the time.

if it’s just the faceplate, put a small amount of superglue on the edge, stick it back on and then put a little around the faceplate to seal it on there.

@Um_bongo said:

You want to seal off the mic in that case: the ion discharge when superglue sets can strip the electret charge in the mics and de-sensitise the aid.

Huh…interesting. I will do that next time…thanks!

Thankfully…I hardly ever fit ’s…I think I can count on one hand the number of CIC’s I’ve fit in the past 5 or 6 years…

@amberleaves said:

hi, can you clarify? I don’t know what you mean when you say to seal off the microphone.
Thanks.

Stick some blu-tak or masking tape across it while the glue is setting so that the mic doesn’t get stripped.

I thought I’d provide an update, as I’m guessing my ultimate solution is a little unconventional - but, it works great.

I tried the superglue three times. First a little glue (believing the marketing, “one drop holds a ton!” - that didn’t work.) Second time, more glue plus around the rim, but it didn’t hold. I unexpectedly found myself yanking the out of my canal by the wires! I thought, this isn’t good. After the second time, I tried to sand an area of excessive dried and gunked superglue, and a piece of the shell simply broke off - which made things worse!

As a last resort, I used superglue one last time simply to hold things together without putting any stress on the parts. After giving it a couple of days to set and dry, I went into the garage and pulled out some (wait for it) J.B. Weld! Yes, J.B. Weld. Does your engine have a hole in the crankcase?!? Does your CIC have a cap that won’t stay on??? I put on two pair of eyeglasses so I could see exactly what I was doing, and very carefully built up a seal around the rim of the cap and I let that dry a couple of days. The thing now works great.

The reason superglue didn’t work to well is it has very poor tensile strength, especially when used on plastics and when you glued the top onto your you put it into a tensile situation and every time you pulled it out of your ear you were basically pulling the joint appart until it failed. JB Weld on the other hand is very good in tensile situations but the best glue to use is the UV activated glue that they use to glue the two parts of the hearing aid together in the first place. If it fails again, find a dentist or HA repair place that can use the right glue and solve the problem. Good luck!

It depends on the type of break. If it’s a clean break (e.g. the shell just came free from the plate) then superglue should work fine and is used by some repair labs.

If the shell itself is damaged then things get more interesting as there’s a good chance that when gluing back together you may not line things up perfectly, resulting in rough spots that could cut or otherwise irritate your ear.

If you do go the superglue route, I’d stress the importance of practicing on other small plastic objects you don’t care about before moving on to your hearing aid. If you’re not skilled at applying the glue it’s very easy to use too much and the next thing you know your battery door is glued shut and other internal components are all gooped up!

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