Braun Toothbrush

[John]

Just been on holiday and took a "spare" charger base. When I came to use it the toothbrush wouldn't fit due to slight alterations (Damn you Braun - why didn't you stay with the wall mountable charger??)

I pared away at the spigot with the usual blunt kitchen knife and did a bit of finishing with an emery board. The brush now fits on the older charger base.

Question - is the spigot more than just a location? Is there perhaps an iron core inside? The current one is not round. Why does the brush need to be oriented in a particular way?

I think Braun has seriously cheapened the product over the years - I liked the wall mounted charger and the charge indicator light!

[Reentrant]

We have a previous-generation (NiMH) Braun/Oral-B and a current (Li-ion) one and the wall chargers are interchangeable.

[Bob Martin]

I hope it's a "brown" and not a "brawn" ;-)

[Reentrant]

Correction - make that NiCD vs NiMH. In fact we have three generations (original single-speed NiCD, two-speed NiMH with blue charging LED and

3-speed with green/red LEDs and low battery beep NiMH) and all three chargers are interchangeable.

[Steve Firth]

That reminds me, I must get some worm tablets for the cat.

[John]

My latest has a sort of egg shaped hole in it. Old charger had a key for a keyway slot.

[Toby]

Is the newest brush Li-ion?

If so, Li-Ion has different charging requirements to NiCd and NiMh, so that may well be the difference - if Li-ion batteries are abused, they explode violently!!

Toby...

[John]

It is Ni-Cad

[Theo Markettos]

True, but these toothbrushes are charged inductively from the base, right? So there's no electrical contact between base and brush? (Some older ones have pins like cordless phones) In which case, the charging electronics will be in the brush.

Of course it's always possible, but I think it's most likely that the electronics will accept a wide range of input voltages - you aren't going to get the accuracy needed to charge Li-ion from a user-controlled inductive coupling without some power conditioning electronics afterwards.

So I wouldn't worry too much about this.

Theo