Replacing the battery in an Oral-B Pulsar.
I like the Oral-B Pulsar, it’s a fine enough toothbrush, but half the time the battery runs dead well before the bristles are worn. Rather than using bristle wear as an indicator, I’m sure most folks just toss the brush as soon as the battery is dead and move on to a new one. Throw in the occasional dud battery that only lasts a week or two and brushing your teeth with a Pulsar can end up costing more than a Netflix subscription.
That’s annoying and expensive, and while moving to a new type of toothbrush may be the more practical answer, it’s not nearly as fun.
The internet says that a toothbrush should be replaced every three months, assuming you don’t go to town on your teeth and destroy the bristles early. That’s way longer than a typical Pulsar battery lasts, so what we want to do is replace the battery inside with a rechargeable that’ll last much longer.
First, you’ll need to crack open the toothbrush. While the lower half of the brush does screw off, it’s glued on with an adhesive, so tools will help here.
Once the adhesive is popped, the cap will twist right off.
Carefully bend back the metal prong, and remove the (ahah!) AAA battery.
The Pulsar battery is a somewhat funky Duracell, with a protruding bump on the negative end. My replacement battery (a rechargeable Hybrio, go with those or a Sanyo Eneloop) is completely flat and wouldn’t always make contact with the inner terminal, so I recommend flipping the orientation and tossing in your replacement battery positive side first. Note the shape difference:
The on/off mechanism in the Pulsar is very basic: the Off button simply pushes a bit of plastic between a split inner terminal, breaking the circuit. The problem here is that the pressure on the terminals needs to be just right, too much and the toothbrush won’t ever turn off, too light and it won’t turn on. I experimented with adding washers and tweaking the prong, but the most successful method ending up being the simplest.
Discard the bit of foam at the top of the prong and replace it with a folded piece of electrical tape. Pinch the prong against the tape with pliers to secure the padding, and screw on the cap (mine aligned label side up).
Test it a few times, and once you’re satisfied that the fit is good, go celebrate the financial savings by turning your Blu-Ray access back on at Netflix.
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15 Responses to “Replacing the battery in an Oral-B Pulsar.”
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When I see this, I think of Gremlins, you are the next Rand Peltzer (Billy’s Father) if you continue down this path…
From the movie “Gremlins”—
I’m an inventor. I made this.
The Bathroom Buddy.
The invention of the century.
It eliminates the need to carry
heavy luggage when you travel.
You got yourself
your shaving mirror…
…your toothbrush, a toothpick.
You got toenail clippers…
…a nail file…
…and you got yourself
a dental mirror.
This is gonna revolutionize traveling.
Let’s just say,
for the sake of argument…
…that you’re on a bus,
a plane or a train.
You forgot to brush your teeth.
You got yourself a bad case
of dragon breath.
Bad breath.
What do you do?
No problem, friend.
All you do is…
…you take your toothbrush out…
…and you push this button.
That’s absolutely no problem.
Cleans up easily.
What I’d like to do, sir,
is give you my card.
Rand Peltzer. “Fantastic Ideas
for a Fantastic World. ”
I make the illogical logical.
I can get you these.
I can get them by the dozen
if you’d like.
What do you think?
What do you think?
Excellent. Any post that results in the invoking of Gremlins is a successful post.
Well, this trick is known since 2006 so not much new here…
but it works…
TIP: use a duracell or other strong battery, because that defines how hard it pulses / so how powerful you can brush
Thanks, I like the brush and tried replacing the battery unsuccessfully a couple of times before, it works!!
I unscrewed it with my hands…haha! It was a bitch thoiugh, I had to scream like the hulk.
I’m waiting for an article on how to light a candle to be posted…
Adelina:
Meh, a lot of folks have no idea that its a more-or-less regular AAA battery, and it isnt just a matter of swapping one in… so why not show others how I did it?
Flipping orientation of the battery finally did the trick.
Thank you mate!
when you screw the cover back on..
doesn’t water get inside the battery area? since there’s no adhesive ? or is that step missing?
Great help- Thanks!
There is so much disposable junk out there. Oral B should be condemned for gluing the thing shut and making it so hard to get a good connection. Power to the people!
Thanks for the pics, too!
Q INCREIBLE ME FUNCIONO MUY BIEN GRACIASSS GRACIASSS!!!
Another tip is to just pull the whole assembly out. Loosely grip the battery along with the silver battery clip with a pair of vice grips (you probably used them to take the bottom off anyway) and pull! the whole assembly comes out without bending anything and goes back together fairly easily.
Thanks to Joe D.
It’s really very simple to line up the top battery connector with the whole assembly removed. I couldn’t get a good connection while it was still assembled and inside the handle.
It wasn’t working at all. Thought it was the battery but when I took out assembly and put it back in, everything worked great! Thanks!!! By the way, it had a regular Duracell in there and I was able to open it without tools. Not a breeze but not too difficult.
Great, thanks
although it will be usefull in the case of another one :-)