Bark Collar Battery Hack - PetSafe can SUCK IT!

If you don't agree with bark collars that shock, then it is best you don't continue reading on.  I have a beagle and a neighbor that called the cops on her.  I had to deal with it.  Long story. 

I own one PetSafe Deluxe Little Dog Bark Control Collar.  I have had it for about 3 years now.  It works generally well, most of the time.  You just have to let it work up some charge and it'll get its point across.  Something I found with the collar that rubbed me the wrong way is the replacment battery cost.  It is $6 at good 'ole Radio Shack and $3 to $10 plus shipping depending on where you find it on the interwebs (the battery is a CR 1/3 N 3 Volt Lithium battery).

This is where I stumbled upon the little bitty LR 44.  The LR 44 is a 1.5 Volt battery that happens to be 1/2 the size of the CR 1/3 N.  You can use two LR 44's in place of the CR battery to get the same voltage!  I found 50, yes 50, for $5, shipping included on Ebay.  That rounds out to a solid $0.20 per PetSafe replacement kit.  Not bad seeing as I probably purchased 3 to 5 replacement batteries before I figured out this hack. 


Long story short, here is what you do.  This is no Lifehacker.com or iFixit.com post, but it'll do.

1) Buy a pack of LR 44's. 












 2) Turn over your collar and pull the battery cartridge.  You simply grab a quarter and turn the cartridge until the line matches up with the arrow. 

If you notice, the little round plastic piece that sits on top of the battery needs to get popped off.  Don't worry, it won't hurt anything and you really don't need it.

3. Pop the battery out with a paper clip.  Just poke with the paper clip through the little hole in the middle of the cartridge, right where you would stick a coin to rotate 

 4. Here is where you have to get creative.  You need to take one LR 44, and put a tiny little piece of electrical tape on one side of it.  See the battery on the left?  It has to cover the entire side which is the positive terminal of the battery.  Then you need to find a very small piece of metal.  I don't recall where I found this piece but it needs to be fairly tiny and about the length of 1.5 battery heights.   If that confuses you simply read on.




 5. You place the first battery without any tape on it into the cartridge.  Then you carefully squeeze the metal strip down along the gap as shown on the left.  The metal strip allows you to create a "series" between the two batteries and double the voltage.  Its like when you add two AA batteries into a piece of electronics.  Notice that on the cartridge, one gap goes the full height of the plastic and the other only goes half way.  You want the metal to go on the gap that is full height of the plastic.

Metal shown in the long gap.  Battery on the right is prepped with electrical tape.

6.  Carefully place the second battery with the tape into the cartridge, making sure the tape is situated directly behind the metal strip.  The metal strip cannot touch this battery or the "series" will be broken. 





 7.  See the little metal contact on the top of the inside of the unit below?  This is what needs to touch the metal strip.  When you put the cartridge back into the unit, make sure you insert it so that when you twist it back into place - and in the "on" position - the metal strip will be lined up with the contact.  It will make a slight, soft pop as well.

 8. Turn to the "on" position and get a green light.  You're done!




PS - another tip I have found handy with this bark collar is to tape pennies to the opposite side of the buckle.  This helps the main part of the collar to hang properly below the dog's throat.  My dog's throat is small enough that the buckle is at 3 or 4 o'clock on a dial which tends to cause the collar to rotate around without a counter weight.  See the duct tape on the left?  That is where I have about 15 pennies hiding.