Battery failed for Kitchenaid KHB3581 immersion blender: Now what??

[weinoo]

15 minutes ago, Margaret Pilgrim said:

This is why I love and haunt flea markets.    The secondary market holds a treasury of obsolete parts.

I haunt Amazon.

[teonzo]

I haunt castles.

 

 

 

Teo

 

[palo]

I haunt ducks

 

p

[weinoo]

1 hour ago, teonzo said:

I haunt castles.

 

 

 

Teo

 

You probably HAVE castles where you live.

[Margaret Pilgrim]

11 hours ago, weinoo said:

I haunt Amazon.

Indeed.     But much of the offerings on Amazon were picked up at garage sales and flea markets.    I found parts to my favorite Oster mini-processor for pennies on the Amazon price, like $5 for a grouip now selling for $40 on Amazon.     Granted, the Bay Area is garage sale and flea market heaven.  

[teonzo]

6 hours ago, weinoo said:

You probably HAVE castles where you live.

 

I was in this one (well, what remains of the castle) just this morning. It's the nearest to where I live, about 5 km. There was a castle even in the small village where I live, but it was destroyed by the friendly guys who owned that other castle; you know how it works, if you live 5 km away you are too different and become a mortal enemy.

There were ducks too, but they were the ones haunting me. A group of wild ducks decided to take the fancy life and become the owners of the moat around that castle. It's forbidden to hunt/touch any animal living there, so they learned they can do whatever they want and no humans will harm them. If you go there without stale bread to offer to the new place owners, then they will quack at you till you are deaf. A male one was quacking vehemently at me, I told him "quack as much as you want, as soon as you put your nose out of this area you end up in my oven", he turned around, shook his tail at me, turned again and resumed quacking. I guess he learnt the local dialect.

 

 

 

Teo

 

[dtremit]

On 5/24/2021 at 8:42 PM, ElsieD said:

This is just a comment on KitchenAid products in general.  I had a KA mini chopper which I loved because it was the only mini chopper that came with a blade that sliced on one side, shredded on the other.  The little plastic thing where the top attaches to the work bowl broke off and I went to my favourite kitchen store to order a replacement.  Much to my surprise, I found out that KA does not stock much of anything in the way of spare parts. 

 

I had a very similar issue with my full-size KA food processor. Interlock mechanism on the work bowl broke. They sold them for probably 15 years, but there are almost no replacement work bowls available. I finally found one with the wrong color handle after searching for ages.

 

I don't think KA actually manufactures anything but its stand mixers in house. *Those* seem to have great parts availability -- everything else, not so much. I'm pretty sure the issue with my FP was that they switched manufacturers -- I bought this one because it was made in France, but the new ones haven't been for ages.

[pallemans]

On 5/23/2021 at 6:25 PM, Smithy said:

I got it apart. I have a battery part number. Maybe there's hope after all!

 

 

Thanks Smithy for adding me to the forum.

Any luck with this? Did you manage to buy the same or similar lithium batteries and fixed the re-charging issue?

I got the same problem, you see. And I've only used the KitchenAid for like 10 times! 

I'm thinking more that the battery charger and the charging station with it are at fault, or the cause for the broken battery, because I have left the battery in the holder on charge for a long time without using it. Maybe it got overcharged. Surely the charger or station should have a cut-off mechanism build in?

(I need to test first though, if the battery is broken and not the charger or station...)

 

Anyway, if you did manage to fix it, please share some more details and pictures how you done it, as I'm now left with an almost new KitchenAid that's completely  useless. 

 

Cheers!

[Smithy]

4 hours ago, pallemans said:

 

Thanks Smithy for adding me to the forum.

Any luck with this? Did you manage to buy the same or similar lithium batteries and fixed the re-charging issue?

I got the same problem, you see. And I've only used the KitchenAid for like 10 times! 

I'm thinking more that the battery charger and the charging station with it are at fault, or the cause for the broken battery, because I have left the battery in the holder on charge for a long time without using it. Maybe it got overcharged. Surely the charger or station should have a cut-off mechanism build in?

(I need to test first though, if the battery is broken and not the charger or station...)

 

Anyway, if you did manage to fix it, please share some more details and pictures how you done it, as I'm now left with an almost new KitchenAid that's completely  useless. 

 

Cheers!

 

I'm afraid I have nothing to report. I found those lithium batteries, or ones very similar, at local vape shops. They were pretty pricey: I've forgotten now, but at least $5 apiece, and maybe more like $8 apiece. I decided I'd better try to get the old batteries out of the holder before spending that kind of money. They are spot-welded in place. Would my soldering gun take care of that? Maybe. I have a friend who is an excellent tinkerer who might have been able to do something with it, but he was busy. I think it might also be possible to rig a different power supply altogether; it wouldn't look as pretty because the battery pack wouldn't go back into its holder, but it would make the blender usable again.

 

While I was pondering all these possibilities, I got busy with other things...and then found a deal on a much simpler, much less expensive rechargeable wand blender. 

 

So there my KitchenAid set sits, still with no power. The wand blender I picked up isn't nearly as good (no speed adjustments, only a whisk and a double blade) but it does most of what I want. I haven't given up on the KitchenAid - that is, haven't given up enough to throw it away or sell the parts - but I left it at home when I went traveling for 6 months.

 

Sorry I don't have better news for you. I still think there are possibilities, but I can't show you how it's done. If YOU figure it out, please post!

[AlaMoi]

gosh.  I have a 1978 plug in Bosch blenderizer shtick thingie that (as of yesterday) is still fully operational . . .

 

maybe this battery powered stuff is not all it's cracked up to be . . . ?

[Smithy]

1 hour ago, AlaMoi said:

gosh.  I have a 1978 plug in Bosch blenderizer shtick thingie that (as of yesterday) is still fully operational . . .

 

maybe this battery powered stuff is not all it's cracked up to be . . . ?

 

I'm inclined to agree with you. I got it as a (requested) Christmas present because we spend months on the road, living off the grid, and I didn't want to have to start the generator to run a wand blender. The waste of all that equipment for want of a viable battery, however, really rankles. Even if they offered separate battery packs, or used batteries that could be purchased at any hardware store, I'd feel better about it.

[AlaMoi]

there's a bell dinging somewhere dimly.... I someone having the same issue - that battery pix triggered it . . .

 

the spot welding is used because they use steel (instead of copper) - soldering as a repair is essentially impossible.

if you can find a shop that does automotive electrical repair - the diodes in alternators are spot welded - they may have suitable equipment to spot weld the battery pack back together.

[dcarch]

You can make your own spot welder using broken microwave oven transformers or go for hooking up a bunch of super capacitors.

 

Check out youtube on DIY.

 

dcarch

[Smithy]

Okay, this may be a silly question but I'll ask it anyway. Can you un-spot-weld something? Will a spot welder work to detach the old batteries from their connectors?

[AlaMoi]

typical the spot weld is mechanically broken - wiggle it back&forth until metal fatigue sets in . . .

[pallemans]

On 4/1/2022 at 7:25 PM, Smithy said:

 

I'm afraid I have nothing to report. I found those lithium batteries, or ones very similar, at local vape shops. They were pretty pricey: I've forgotten now, but at least $5 apiece, and maybe more like $8 apiece. I decided I'd better try to get the old batteries out of the holder before spending that kind of money. They are spot-welded in place. Would my soldering gun take care of that? Maybe. I have a friend who is an excellent tinkerer who might have been able to do something with it, but he was busy. I think it might also be possible to rig a different power supply altogether; it wouldn't look as pretty because the battery pack wouldn't go back into its holder, but it would make the blender usable again.

 

While I was pondering all these possibilities, I got busy with other things...and then found a deal on a much simpler, much less expensive rechargeable wand blender. 

 

So there my KitchenAid set sits, still with no power. The wand blender I picked up isn't nearly as good (no speed adjustments, only a whisk and a double blade) but it does most of what I want. I haven't given up on the KitchenAid - that is, haven't given up enough to throw it away or sell the parts - but I left it at home when I went traveling for 6 months.

 

Sorry I don't have better news for you. I still think there are possibilities, but I can't show you how it's done. If YOU figure it out, please post!

I figured it out by means of buying a spare battery, the only left spare batteries for this model in the world were in New Zealand. Lucky I had a friend who lives there and bought it for me and delivered it to me in Europe. 

 

Charging it as we speak I will test it later on. But reading the manual thoroughly again about the charger docking station, it says "the charging indicator will come on..." But I don't see any indicator lights on the charger station (5KCL12CSOB). 

Did you see any indicator lights on it? 

It makes me feel that actually my battery wasn't broken, but the charging station is.... I'm charging the new battery now, so if that fails to recharge, then it must be the charger station. 

If that's the case, do you know if there is a different charging station available, maybe even by KitchenAids own brand, that can charge these batteries? A different model I mean, one that has indicator lights? Or even an after market one? 

[palo]

if they are "18680" batteries, Amazon has outboard chargers, but obviously you have to remove the batteries to charge them not good solution

 

Did you try it before they were charging? They should have some juice in them from the factory - it might be the blender and not the batteries 😨

 

p

[pallemans]

51 minutes ago, palo said:

if they are "18680" batteries, Amazon has outboard chargers, but obviously you have to remove the batteries to charge them not good solution

 

Did you try it before they were charging? They should have some juice in them from the factory - it might be the blender and not the batteries 😨

 

p

Yeah that's not really practicable. I'm gonna try and change the charger adapter first to see if that works as my new battery is not recharging aswell. I think that's my problem. 

[Smithy]

5 hours ago, pallemans said:

I figured it out by means of buying a spare battery, the only left spare batteries for this model in the world were in New Zealand. Lucky I had a friend who lives there and bought it for me and delivered it to me in Europe. 

 

Charging it as we speak I will test it later on. But reading the manual thoroughly again about the charger docking station, it says "the charging indicator will come on..." But I don't see any indicator lights on the charger station (5KCL12CSOB). 

Did you see any indicator lights on it? 

It makes me feel that actually my battery wasn't broken, but the charging station is.... I'm charging the new battery now, so if that fails to recharge, then it must be the charger station. 

If that's the case, do you know if there is a different charging station available, maybe even by KitchenAids own brand, that can charge these batteries? A different model I mean, one that has indicator lights? Or even an after market one? 

 

My charger has a different model number: KHB3581CA0, but you can look at the photo and see whether the charging indicator is in the same spot. It's a little circle on the lid release button. When it was charging, the light would travel slowly around the circle, like the "wait" sign we see on so many web browsers as a page loads. When the battery was fully charged, the entire circle would be steadily illuminated.

 

 

[Ralphie Baby]

I read an old thread in Kitchen Consumer bemoaning the fate of KitchenAid’s Artisan Hand Blender KHB3581 - it’s an expensive bit of kit, but if the battery starts refusing to charge and dies as a result - and this is very common because the battery management (which is all on the charger) is not great - then your expensive blender just became junk because you can no longer obtain the KCL12IBOB replacement battery for it.

 

It is easy enough to get the battery case open but a quick inspection of the internals reveals that servicing the batteries, which are welded into their harness, would require specialist skills and equipment. But I have found an easier fix.

 

The battery pack is identical internally to the Milwaukee M12 *compact* battery used for low-power 12V Milwaukee hand tools, and these are widely available. One attached a picture of the correct type. The old 1.5Ah batteries are no longer available but a 2.0 2.5, 3.0 or even 3.5Ah version should all be fine.

 

Please note these are the M12 batteries WITHOUT the bulky slab attached to the bottom containing additional cells. The one we want only has three cells in it and it’s approximately the same size as the KCL12  blender battery.

 

So I obtained the cheapest M12 compact battery I could find (actually just a knockoff from Temu) and opened it up.
 

Please note the cases of both the M12 and the KCL12IBOB can both be nondestructively opened with the aid of a small screwdriver to prise up the plastic tabs just enough to slip them off the catch. The battery pack then just slides out.

 

So I did that then slid the M12 battery pack into the KCL12IBOB case and replaced the chrome-effect top. It just clicked into place. I then put it in the KitchenAid charger and it started charging. Bingo!
 

I now have a fully charged battery in my KHB3581 and it only cost me about $15.

[TdeV]

Welcome @Ralphie Baby. I can see by the attitudes in your post that you fit right in amongst eGulleters! Hope you have fun here.