An Unusual Thing

[Gary A]

I bought a Braun rechargeable tooth brush about 5 years ago in the US. I brought it with me to Thailand and found a nice little transformer to run the charger. I used it here for about 3 years until the tooth brush would no longer hold a charge for the 2 minute brushing. I recently visited the US and bought another one just like it. The charger has no metal connection to the tooth brush, just a plastic stub that fits into the tooth brush. The charger specifically says 100V to 120V. I charged up my new one plugged into the transformer and was happily back in business. I then found that I needed the transformer for my computer router. I bought a new Linksys router in the US and was quite surprised to see that the power supply was 110V.

I was then debating whether or not to throw away the old tooth brush and decided to plug the charger into the 220 and see what happened. Nothing happened. I put the old toothbrush on the charger and the charge light indicator was brighter. I went to bed thinking it would most likely burn up during the night. The next morning the tooth brush worked like a new one. I thought it was just a matter of time before it fried but after 2 weeks it is still working fine. Did the extra voltage rejuvenate that old battery? How long do you think it will last?

[astral]

A short boost of high voltage can overcome high resistance that has built up in the batteries.

Not really a recommended approach as extended application can cause the batteries to explode.............. or the charger catch fire.

You may be lucky and get more useful life out of the batteries, but please

use the normal charger again.

I am moving this to the General section.

Not really Real Estate related.