Reshape receiver wire on Phonak Audéo Marvel?

@bradw said:

and do a little Star Trek engineering of my own… (going where no man has gone before)

Hope your ears don’t end up like Spock’s, Brad!

In reply to @Canuck

@Canuck said:

Brad, For what it’s worth, Phonak Marvel HAs are available with receiver wires of 4 lengths. See the following link for their tool and method of determining the proper length required.

Ha ha, this isn’t the issue for many of us. But thank you so much for the link. This is very valuable information for communicating with my audi.

You see for me, it’s not the height of the ear. It’s the length of the wire past the bend. Because the bend is the reverse of my ear canal, the dome won’t just sit in the orifice of my canal the way the bend length assumes it will. Because the bend is backwards, it keeps wrenching the dome out of my canal and points it right into the skin.

This is useless. I’m fighting a losing battle with so many issues now.

The domes won’t stay in my canals because of the wire bend.
Phonak won’t support open-dome streaming equalization and my audi is clueless. So the BT streaming for phone or music is nearly useless.
Autosense 3.0 really fails me. Utterly. And there aren’t enough manual programs for the situations I need to cover.
I still can’t understand people at the office, on phone calls, in restaurants, my kids in the car, dialog in movies, or ANYONE who talks without facing me.

I have a strong urge to return these now, but I think I just exceeded my warranty/return period.

bradw AuthorFlorida, USA

ok, here’s an attempt at some photos to hopefully better explain what I was getting at with my original post.
so the close-up of the ear (last photo) probably shows best what I mean…I’m thinking the wire needs to S curve to the left, closer to my head, so that it can thread through the little “notch”
I’ve unsuccessfully tried pulling the aid temporarily down behind the ear to “shorten” the wire.
I’ve unsuccessfully tried taking the dome completely off so they can be inserted carefully too deep.
and then looking at these photos, the one with glasses on… it could be said the wire needs to be longer so it can curve forward a bit at the same time…
…so I lifted the aid behind my ear to ‘lengthen’ the wire…nope. It stills needs to curve to the side a bit too.

So what else am I missing?

I think there’s an un-tapped cottage industry potential here. You could take a 3D picture of the sides of your heads and someone could make a custom receiver wire.

Unfortunately, there’s a lot of variation in external ear geometry (just as with internal canal geometry) and it isn’t going to be right for all people.

They should make the tubes out of thermoplastic that can be custom-shaped by inserting it and holding it against your head in place as it cools.

In my case, Brad, the tops of my ears stick out a lot more than you so the tube lies right on my skin. You should be glad your ears don’t stick out as far as mine, but the downside is that the tubes don’t lay as flush. I’ll try to get a picture.

bradw AuthorFlorida, USA

so went to the aud yesterday.
She said they “can’t” be reshaped…and that if i try to bend they WILL short out.
so…that tells me that she does no have a tool to do it.

& I know it’s not true. Kinking the wire maybe. Bending over and over again to fatigue definitely. But clearly the wires come from the factory bent, so clearly it’s possible.
and since teh wires are so flexible I feel fairly sure it’s thermosetting plastic that is setting the bend, it’s just a question of how hot…and secondarily how much of an over bend is needed in the jig

I sent a message to phonak asking the question generally. I’m not confident that I’ll get a good answer though…I’m sure there would be too much liability concern to direct me how to do it.

I sure do wish I had some old scrap receiver wires to play with!

oh well… guess I’ll have to live with a bad fit for now…

AshFan

I had same issue with OPN receiver when it came and simply I did my self by bending it (not so hard) as I need. I even told my Audi and she told me it’s ok to do it myself but just be patient and don’t bend too much. She also didn’t recommend using any heat or hot air (if am doing it by myself)

bradw AuthorFlorida, USA

right after I made my last post, I saw that I had received a response already from phonak. Very fast.
basically they wrote “…have your hearing care provider contact Phonak to see if a request can be made for a adjustment to the wire…”
forwarded to my audiologist, who thinks they would probably be taking a shot in the dark for something…charge me big money and that it probably would not be warrantied or returnable…

Oh well. As an engineer, I know it’s likely a very simple solution to a simple issue. It would be an absolute no-brainer for the manufacturer technically…although I do understand some companies are just troubled by “custom” work. A person would just need the spec’s for what the wire is, because there could be a very fine line between the heat that would be needed and the melting or char point.

Such a simple thing would make it look oh so very much better, but I suppose the issue is rather trivial and vain, so… the perfectionist in me will just have to take a chill pill I suppose

and yes, Ashfan, I can imagine they wouldn’t recommend heat…not knowing. I’ve tried gently shaping by hand, but I certainly don’t want to over bend it…
Did you have luck with yours… a bend that would hold? How much past the radius you wanted did you have to go for it to hold what you wanted?

I had a similar experience with Phonak. I talked to the Phonak consumer support rep on the phone and he said he had no idea that the bend was at right angles to ear geometry and was clueless as to why. He didn’t have anything to say about changing the bend. FWIW, he did say that you could request custom shaped “wires” from Phonak.

BTW, I don’t think they could short out if you try to reshape them. They may short out from too much heat applied depending on what kind of insulation is on the wires. My guess is that it’s enamel insulation and would be able to take a great degree of heat. I should think a permanently reshaped tube would be better than having to force the tube to bend each time – less wear and tear on the actual wires. I’m going to explore this with my audi next week. Will let you all know what transpires.

AshFan

In reply to @bradw

Yes, I did it with my previous Resound Lynx and with my OPN & OPN-S trials. You just need to be carful and have enough pressure to bend it but not too much to break it.
With my previous Resound, i was some how cautious so I got a backup receivers just in case I missed up😂.
Now my hands know what to do

Interesting. How did you bend it and get it to stay? Did you use heat on the tubing surrounding the wires?

AshFan

I just used my hands and finger tips. Bending smoothly and then putting both sides together like pressing both together(not too much pressure but enough to stay bend). It worked fine all the times but this is around 30-45 min process

LTHAtlanta

Oct 14, 2019

In reply to @bradw

My audiologist said he couldn’t help so I’ve been doing some experiments in an attempt to find a way to reshape my wires. Found info on web that HA wires do have a thermosetting plastic sheath and that the recommended maximum temperature for reshaping is 266°F. Asked my Audi for some “scrap” wires to experiment on. Said he had plenty and gave me three. Checked the temperature of my heat gun on low setting and found it to be about 260° when instant read thermometer held 2” from tip of concentrator on gun. Reshaped test wire by bending, holding in place with tape and heating briefly (about one second) with gun. After cooling, new shape seemed to be retained perfectly. Shape has not changed a week after modifying so I’m going to try this technique next week on my HA. Plan to protect receiver and HA by wrapping with foil. Will report results.