Problem

My youngest son (12 months) decided our TV remote would be good to chew on – he is really rather like a dog at the moment!

He didn’t have it for too long, but managed to do enough damage that the remote was repeatedly sending button presses to the TV.

I tried the usual tricks: taking the batteries out and putting them back, using a hairdryer to try and get rid of moisture, and mashing the buttons. Nothing worked.

Next, a quick check on eBay suggested I could get a replacement for £15, so not too bad, but worth me having a go at fixing it.

A search on Google didn’t turn up anything useful to help fix it, so after a few experiments, I managed to take it to pieces, and thought I should post here in case anyone else has the same problem and wanted some help.

How To

First, you need to get the back cover off. It slides up, so you can replace the batteries, but at this point it isn’t obvious how to remove it. There are two ways; you can either use a flat metal blade (I used a table knife, but you may wish to use something safer!) and insert into the seam between the back cover and the main body and then slide it up and down until you pop open the catches, or, the better way, is to half slide up the back cover and you’ll notice little grooves that it slots into to help you get it off.

Next, remove the six little screws. Even with these removed, it is still locked together because of internal catches. I couldn’t find a simple way to get this off, so had to use the same flat blade trick as before.

After you’ve got this apart, you can clean the rubber keys and the contact board, and hopefully this will fix it for you. Then, just put it back together and you are done.

Hope this helps.