Fixers' Collective

FIX-IT rather than toss it!!
A 20th century fix for a 21st century problem:
Aluminum foil to the rescue:
I couldn’t get new Duracell batteries to work in my old iMac’s wireless mouse. Fortunately I was able to use my iPad to search for a reason. From an old discussions.apple.com thread I found out the problem was the button on positive side of the new Duracell battery was too big to fit into the too little hole in the mouse. Oh, my. I followed the suggestion on the thread and fixed the problem with sticking in some wadded up tin foil.
From the thread:
The problem here is that the recessed positive contacts (at the on/off switch end) are too deeply recessed to make contact with the industry allowed variation in AA batteries. Those contacts are too deeply recessed because the plastic is too thick (in the hole that forms the recess) and the metal contacts are not tightly up against the backside of that plastic wall, in fact it looks like they are installed with a gap and/or can deform/bend away further opening that gap even larger. As mentioned above many industry AA battery standards define the positive button contact height as being 1.0mm or larger ... however that plastic wall is about 1mm thick, add the gap for the metal contacts and you have no electrical contact no matter how much contact spring force there is at the negative end. Unfortunately, there is no simple good fix for the average person to perform, the recessed contacts can't be accessed to bend them to remove that gap and the pastic is too thick anyway .. leaving us with a "duct tape" fix, like wadding some tin foil into that positive terminal recess and swearing when it falls out during battery changes. ... See MoreSee Less

4 weeks ago  ·  

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