Walkie-Talkie Repair: One Loose Wire, Zero E-Waste

After a weekend away with the bigger family, my kid came to me to say that one of her walkie-talkies didn't work anymore. She could still speak using the blue one, but receiving sound didn't work. Before going to school, she asked if I could take a look.

Opening up

So I opened it up with 4 screws, my bits were a bit on the wide side for the plastic, but with some friction it just worked. The battery compartment in the back cover connected to the main board through spring contacts, so there were no power cables to worry about when separating the halves.

This should be an easy fix, even for someone who has almost no soldering experience. I heated the old solder and pushed the wire in. I figured that it would come loose again, so I added a bit of new solder to beef it up a bit.

Before putting it all back together I tested the speaker. The boot sound was there, so I started the other walkie-talkie and started testing the sound between them. Everything was good, so all screws went back in.

My kid was very happy as she received these for a birthday a couple of years ago and has been using them on and off ever since.

As you may know, I like it when I can repair things and I love it even more when I can do it myself. In total, this took me 10 minutes at most, including gathering materials and tools. At least this one didn't become e-waste over loose wire.