{"id":176,"date":"2016-01-30T12:52:49","date_gmt":"2016-01-30T12:52:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/davidjohntaylor.co.uk\/?p=176"},"modified":"2016-01-30T13:06:57","modified_gmt":"2016-01-30T13:06:57","slug":"dont-throw-away-your-blink-bandz-fix-it-for-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidjohntaylor.co.uk\/index.php\/2016\/01\/30\/dont-throw-away-your-blink-bandz-fix-it-for-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Don’t throw away your Blink Bandz – fix it for \u00a31!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"IMG_20160130_113109\"<\/a>

Blink Bandz – a cheap motion sensitive wrist band for night running<\/p><\/div>\n

When I took up running again, and the nights became cold and dark, I realised that I needed to be more visible to traffic. \u00a0During a wander around Tesco, I came across Blink Bandz<\/a> – a flexible silicon wristband fitted with 2 ultrabright LED’s which flashed when movement was detected. \u00a0It was reduced to about \u00a34 so I grabbed one!<\/p>\n

If I recall correctly, the packaging stated that the Blink Bandz was single use only – i.e. once it stopped working, you chuck it away and buy again. \u00a0Not exactly environmentally friendly!<\/p>\n

Over the next twelve months or so, I wore it on my leg, with it generating a pretty bright flash every step I took. \u00a0But recently, it started to dim, so I thought it was time to investigate how to bring it back to life.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_20160130_113142\"<\/a>

Rear view, with the silicon panel hiding the main board.<\/p><\/div>\n

The board is fitted behind a sealed silicon square on the back of the band – that makes sense because the board needs protecting from sweaty arms during activity! \u00a0I could just about make out the board through the thin silicon, and it looked fairly safe to try and cut into the panel without breaking anything. \u00a0So, with a\u00a0gentle slice of a stanley knife around the two longer sides and the bottom opened up the casing.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_20160130_113207\"<\/a>

Rear of band with board exposed<\/p><\/div>\n

Inside was a board with two batteries fitted and a thin plastic film. \u00a0I think the film might have been there to allow for easy removal of the paper tab originally when I bought it which stopped the battery from running down.<\/p>\n

Next, it was a case of gently prising the board out, which is easy enough due to the flexibility of the silicon. \u00a0The batteries are housed in quite a tight fitting metal plate, so it’s necessary to get a small screwdriver to gently poke each battery out.<\/p>\n

Once that was done, I could see the batteries were really cheap CR1220 buttons, around \u00a31 on eBay<\/a>, even from UK suppliers.<\/p>\n

\"All<\/a>

All the main parts of a Blink Bandz wristband.<\/p><\/div>\n

With the batteries identified, and following a quick eBay order, the new batteries were inserted, and the board pushed back into place. \u00a0I used a small amount of silicone rubber adhesive around the edge and left it to dry for a couple of hours.<\/p>\n

The next day, I took it out on a run, and it was back to normal. \u00a0So I know for the price of a new band, I can buy at least 5-6 batteries and get it working again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I took up running again, and the nights became cold and dark, I realised that I needed to be more visible to traffic. \u00a0During a wander around Tesco, I came across Blink Bandz – a flexible silicon wristband fitted… Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidjohntaylor.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidjohntaylor.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidjohntaylor.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidjohntaylor.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidjohntaylor.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/davidjohntaylor.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":191,"href":"https:\/\/davidjohntaylor.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions\/191"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidjohntaylor.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidjohntaylor.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidjohntaylor.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidjohntaylor.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}