Hair trimmer - Wahl Pocket Pro - Maintenance and troubleshooting

The Wahl Pocket Pro hair trimmer is a useful and compact all-purpose hair trimmer that can be used for head, beard, body and animal hair trimming. Being very small and light makes it a good travel trimmer.

Maintenance and troubleshooting

First of all DO NOT USE THIS TRIMMER ON WET HAIR. Hair builds up behind the blades and close to the motor inside. If the hair is wet then it can make the metal parts to rust.

Rust can appear on the blades if it is used in wet conditions. Leaving it to dry helps the problem somewhat but not completely. If you use it on wet hair then unscrew the two small screws holding the blade and dry the parts separately.

Rust can be cleaned off by using aluminium foil. This applies to the blades as well as the battery plates.

The machine can be hard to start, keep running or refuse to start at all due to a metal plate inside that makes the contact between the battery plates and the motor. This can be solved by refitting the metal plate or maybe adjusting it or possibly by pushing down on the handle of the machine.

The inside is very simply made and easy to access.

Slide open the battery compartment, remove the battery and unscrew the screw below it. There are two latches on the sides in height with the button that also holds the lid. Use a plastic card to slide along the gap from the end to the button on both sides to push these latches in and the lid should get loose. The latches are attached to the bigger part of the two.

Inside you find a small electric motor with only one wire going to the plus pole of the battery compartment.

You might find a build up of hair around the motor axle that you should remove.

The motor can be lifted straight up without force. 

Under the motor is the metal plate that may have to be re-seated. This could switch be the worst part of this trimmer. It is very cheaply made and the metal plate is supposed to make contact directly with the motor when the button is pressed. It is loosely positioned on two small plastic nobs and it can too easily get out of place. Since it is supposed to change position depending on how the button is pushed it can not be glued.

Please note that the lid pushes down on the motor which in turn pushes down on the metal plate. Therefore if you test the machine with a battery in the compartment but not the lid in place push gently down on the motor to ensure that contact is made. Most often there is no need to bend the metal plate, it has just got out of position below the motor.

If the power switch becomes unusable then it could be possible to install some other type of switch by some soldering.

The cable to the motor is so long that you can test it by putting a battery between the battery compartment plate and the motor directly to check if it is running.

Put the metal plate and the motor in correct position, then put the handle lid and the screw back, then the battery and the battery lid.