Faulty Fire-TV Remote Bought Back To Life

We have a Fire-TV stick connected to our living room TV. It worked well for over 2 years and then my nephew came to visit us.

His favorite pastime was smashing the FIRE-TV remote against the wall. The remote was quite sturdy and bore the brunt for a few weeks, but ultimately it gave up and died.

I opened up the remote by prying a flat screw driver into the locking tabs.

On visual inspection I saw that the battery spring terminal was broken. So I soldered the broken terminals with a healthy blob of solder.

I thought it was an easy fix, but on testing the remote still didn’t work.

On closer inspection I found that the inductor coil L1 was chipped off. On testing it was found to be defective.

I could not find a replacement in my spares,

so I did what a desperate guy who wants to watch TV did – I removed the broken coil and shorted it.

Tested the remote again and VOILA, it worked. Tested it for a whole day and made sure that its working. Now I need to buy a silicone cover to protect the remote. A new remote costs as much as a new set of Fire – TV stick!!

This article was prepared for you by Roshan Pillai. He is 34 years old and have 14 years of experience in research and development of machine vision systems for pharmaceuticals and automotive industry. He has done Bachelors in IT & Electronics(BSc-IT & Elec) and Masters in computer applications(MCA) from University Of Mumbai. He is an electronic hobbyist. He is currently the Director and researcher in his own company specializing in machine vision systems.

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4 Comments

1. 

   Parasuraman S

   July 5, 2021 at 6:24 pm

   Well done! It is an interesting fix and thanks for sharing it!

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2. 

   Albert van Bemmelen

   July 5, 2021 at 6:43 pm

   Maybe now the control uses a bit more battery current without the now shorted coil position because it must have made some significance? And since a coil protects against a sudden rising inrush current it here probably decreased the switching in power-on current.

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3. 

   AdamS

   July 5, 2021 at 6:55 pm

   I hope you will also be giving your nephew a lesson in respecting other people's property!

   Likes(6)Dislikes(1)

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4. 

   Yogesh Panchal

   July 7, 2021 at 5:46 pm

   Good Repair!Roshan Pillai

   Likes(2)Dislikes(0)

   Reply

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