How to Repair a Card Shuffler

Since the COVID virus has us stuck at home, we have gotten hooked on playing Canasta and play every day. It has detoxed us from the internet and TV and has helped to keep our minds off the troubles of the world.

My husband nor I can do a good job of shuffling the cards so when it's just the two of us it's a handicap.

On 7-27-2020, he ordered a card shuffler from Walmart and surprised me with it when it was delivered on 7-31-2020, our 60th wedding anniversary. It cost $21.91. We have had it for almost 7 weeks.

The machine worked great to begin with and then after a couple of days, it began to get slow and sluggish like the batteries were giving out. I thought to myself, this machine is not worth a toot and figured we had wasted our money and it would go in the trash.

He likes to tinker on things and he took it apart. He saw that the lever was not providing the wires a good connection so he removed the lever and the spring and pulled the wires to the outside of the case. When we needed to shuffle the cards, we just put the two contacts together and the machine worked like a charm.

After a week, one of the contacts broke off so he skinned a little off the wire then we were able to contact the naked wire to the other contact. The machine ran like brand new.

Last week, one of the wires came loose and only one side of the machine would work. He took the machine down to his shop and used his solder iron to put the wires back together.

The machine is going strong on the same batteries and we love it. It's easy to just touch the wires together to make it run. It does not have enough current to shock you. We use it just about every day.

It's fun to use and if it breaks and can't be fixed, we have received our money's worth in entertainment from just shuffling the cards. I love putting the cards in the machine and watching it go. He tells me, "Just deal, you are going to wear it out!"