Adhesive For Hearing Aid Plastic

[kelticwizard]

My father has a hearing aid made of hard plastic. Not sure of what type, but it does not appear to be vinyl.

The battery compartment has a door which swings open by a hinge. The hinge is attached to the body of the hearing aid via two end pieces with a hole drilled in each to accommodate the end of the hinge shaft. I wish I could draw a pic, but I can't.

The tiny end pieces have broken off, and the hinge now is unanchored. I could fix it by putting the hinge back in place and taking a hot knife to melt the plastic and encase the hinge shaft again. Such a move might weaken the plastic somewhat, but the hearing aid is old, my father is planning to replace it soon anyway. I just want something functional for awhile.

Anybody know of any adhesive which might serve better than melting the hearing aid case and smoothing the plastic over the broken hinge shaft?

The place wants several hundred dollars to fix it and I think my father is going to get a new one fairly soon anyway. For the record, the model number is
Miracle Ear 96
NF96-715850L.

Any advice would be appreciated.

[SY]

If the case is hard, it's probably ABS or similar. I think TAP Plastics has an adhesive that will work (high solvent content!). Ditto McMaster-Carr.

[bear]

Check with Miracle Ear.
See what their warranty/repair policy is.
Best approach is to do that first.
Once you monkey with it, you have no warranty if there is one.

_-_-bear

[JRace]

For the manufacture to fix they will have to replace the entire faceplate which houses the electronics, hence the high price.

What I do at work is use a dab of crazy glue on the exposed pin.
Let it air dry, and paint a light coat pf clear nail polish.

This may last...or it may not...

[DaveG]

Melting the plastic will be very difficult to control. I like 5 minute epoxy. It thickens up quick enough to allow building up and filling areas. With careful cleaning and roughing up of the base, it adheres well and can be used for bonding and to recreate missing sections. Masking tape can be used to form little dams, like forms, to hold back the epoxy till it sets. Sometimes it takes a few applications to get it thick enough for the strength or depth needed. Got to let it cure over night.
It'll take a day or 2 to do it right. Depends on how bad you want to fix it and if your father can do without it for a bit.

[kelticwizard]

Thank you all very much for yur answers. We will recheck with Miracle Ear for the warranty, the relative who had the aid looked at might not have taken it to the correct place, since they had no record of the sale.

After that, I will definitely try all adhesives recommended. We found an old hearing for my father which seems to work as a stopgap, and I am encouraging him to get a new one shortly, as I hope there have been improvements.

[lowtherdream]

http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3...ons/Adhesives/

You can send them an email ask ask for advice

[kelticwizard]

Thank you for the reference.


Right now, so many other things are going on with my parents, (my father has to build up his legs so he can walk), that the hearing aid issue, whch seemed so vital at the time, has been temporarily pushed to the background. However, I greatly appreciate this advice and input, which I can assure you will be employed when I finally get a chance to deal with the hearing aid.

[PB2]

This has often happened with things around the house here. I find simply scotch taping the door shut works well.

[kelticwizard]

Sorry for the delay in answering, spending a lot of time over at my parent's house nearby and it's a computer-free zone.

Scotch taping the door shut would be a great solution, but he changes the battery every few days so it probably is not the way to go.

Turns out my mother has the more pressing hearing problem and my father's mobility is coming along nicely. So we might bypass the repair and go straight to new hearing aids for the both of them, the electronics of which seem to have improved quite a bit in the last decade. My parents' present hearing aids are analog.

Come to think of it, the scotch tape solution might not be so bad if we have to wait for the new hearing aids to arrive.