Experiment #5 - Beard Trimmer Repair

For those that have never had the pleasure of sharing a bathroom with me, I use a beard trimmer with depth gauge to keep my sharp looking John Barrowman with facial hair look. (I know that sounds all very “gay” but as he is and doesn’t have facial hair, we can safely assume it’s the reverse).

The one I use is a simple $20 Conair Model purchased back in 2007 (photo of similar model below) and it has served me well, but over the last few years has been slowly dying and finally gave up over the weekend.

Inspired by all the hardware fixes and replacements I have done thanks to the great people at iFixIt I wondered if I could just take it apart - only four screws - and fix what I suspected was just a bad contact on the on/off switch.

Unscrewing was easy, and after I bypassed the on/off switch - short-circuiting with a screwdriver - to verify that the motor and batteries were OK I dismantled the on/off switch mechanism. Removing a million facial hairs, cleaning the contacts, adjusting the pressure on the sprung piece of metal and reassembling I have a beard trimmer than now works better than it has in years for 30 minutes work - albeit the motor does have a little stiction problem now and again - but it always had that.

Now at $20 it wouldn’t have been a huge cost to just throw it away and buy another one. 30 minutes of my repair time is almost certainly less time than the anguish of going shopping to buy a replacement. Of course it wouldn’t be my old faithful as they don’t make that model anymore. Considering all the options available that would present themselves to me on the store shelves, none of which I would be actually able to try before I buy, I would be left to the mental touture of reviews and marketing information and would end up descending into a Sheldon Cooperesque quandery with my mind screaming out “….. but which one”….

Luckily I saved myself from all of that and a poke in the eye to disposable technology, time to trim my beard….

 
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