How can I fix my battery-powered blender?

February 15, 2010 3:39 PM

Can I fix my battery-powered blender?

I own this Coleman battery powered blender. It's only been used about 5 times since I bought it (it sat in a cupboard for three months unused) and has been fully charged for 24 hours.

When I go to turn it on, it doesn't turn on. It makes a fast-paced "click-click-click" sound, which I assumed was an issue with the motor that turns the crank. I opened the blender up and was surprised to find the noise was actually coming from the circuit board that contains the on/off switch.

This is a picture of the circuit board. The bottom right-hand black box is the relay. This (.wav) is the sound it's making. I am a technically-savvy guy who's not afraid to DIY; what might be causing the trouble and how I can fix it?

posted by Hiker to home & garden (4 answers total)

Are you absolutely sure it is charged? Do the LEDs show it fully charged? Are you charging it with the switch in the "off" position? Is there another button you must push to start the charge? Do you have a meter to check the 12 volt charge on the battery?
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 5:02 PM on February 15, 2010

LED shows full charge; I don't have a meter to test it here, but I will get one.

The plugs are labelled chargers, so it's my impression that the blender isn't supposed to work solely on drawing power from the outlet. Is this a fair assumption?
posted by Hiker at 5:17 PM on February 15, 2010

Yes, your assumption is fair, unless the manual tells you otherwise. If you turn it on and put one end of a wooden dowel or Popsicle stick to your ear, and the other end to various places on the circuit board, you might be able to isolate the component that is making the noise. I'm guessing it's this relay.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 6:17 PM on February 15, 2010

If the relay is toasted you must consider that replacing the relay won't solve the problem if another component failed and toasted the relay. If a new relay is cheap enough you could take your chances. If all else fails, rather than throwing out the blender you could forget the battery entirely and wire it to run on a 12 volt DC adapter. There are boxes full of those in thrift stores. Just make sure the output is DC rather than AC, and get the polarity right. It should also work plugged into the cigarette lighter/12 volt socket in your car.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 8:21 PM on February 15, 2010