Broken Boombox? ...just Bodgit!

I was recently given a Bluetooth speaker with an unusual fault.

It worked fine, so long as you held down one of its buttons.

I couldn't open the box, so what to do?

The Bluetooth speaker in question is labelled up as a Sharkk Boombox made in China, and was available from Amazon a few years ago.

It is designed to operate as a Bluetooth device by default, but can be switched to use an auxiliary input via a jack socket. So it should be in 'Bluetooth mode' every time you switch it on, and only respond to the aux input after pressing and releasing the "M" button.

When paired with my wonderful Nokia 3310 phone, this particular specimen works for just a second or so before muting. For some inexplicable reason, if you keep the "M" button depressed, it works.

But as soon as I release the "M" button, it stops again.

open the box...

I thought I'd have a look inside, so first checked for fixing screws. There are none visible, so I removed the 'stick-on' feet, the "SHARKK" label and the product label. Still no sign of any screws.

Next step was to try to pry the front off ...then the back. Neither would move, and all I was doing was chewing up plastic.

This seemed like a good time to give up, so I threw the device into the recycle bin, and opened a bottle of Greene King IPA.

saved from landfill...

Within 5 minutes I'd scooped the speaker back out of the bin, and was testing it with a G-clamp...

What a bodge?

It seemed to work reliably, and so I thought I had finished the job ...but the boss disagreed: The blue clamp had to go!

So I applied a hard-plastic adhesive around the "M" button, re-attached the clamp, and left it to 'go-off' for 12 hours.

It works!

Job's a good un!

I'm currently using it with my laptop, as the sound quality of the laptop internal speakers is not great.