Kitchen Mama can opener acting weird, is the battery pull reset legit?

[Thomas Martinez]

Found a few mention of having to do a reset on the Kitchen Mama automatic can openers when they start to act up. Seems worth bringing up since these type of openers tend to glitch out after sitting for a while.
According to online sources, all you have to do is remove the battery and leave the opener with the batteries out for a couple minutes before reinserting the batteries. This apparently does a full reset of the opener. The Kitchen Mama is a relatively cheap device, so it is likely as simple as it sounds.
The question is whether or not the few minutes out is for anything other than to allow the capacitor to fully discharge. For most small devices with batteries, simply removing the batteries and reinserting them will achieve the same results. Another question is what cause the can openers to lock up in the first place. Is it likely due to low batteries? Has anyone here had success using this reset trick?

 

[Stormy Stag]

yeah the reset work, did it on my mom's last month. She swore it was dead, popped the AAs out, made coffee, put em back, fired right up.

 

[Impossible Ibex]

The few minute wait is almost certainly just cap discharge insurance.
On something this cheap there's probably one tiny bulk cap on the MCU rail and it bleed in seconds. Shorting the contacts together with a screwdriver does the same thing instantly. The 2 min instruction is just there in case grandma shows up with the can opener and puts the batteries in, only to find after 4 second that nothing has changed.

 

[Obedient Oyst]

low batteries 100% trigger the lockup. When I first got mine with alkalines dropping to around 1.1v the motor would stall while attempting to turn the can and the can opener would just sit in a blinking mode. Replacing the batteries fixed it immediately.

 

[Distinct Dugon]

low batteries 100% trigger the lockup. When I first got mine with alkalines dropping to around 1.1v the motor would stall while attempting to turn the can and the can opener would just sit in a blinking mode. Replacing the batteries fixed it immediately.

wait does anyone know if these things have nonvolatile memory? If the can opener just latches up and there's no memory of the state it was in would there be a reason for the wait period to occurs?

 

[Impossible Ibex]

wait does anyone know if these things have nonvolatile memory? If the can opener just latches up and there's no memory of the state it was in would there be a reason for the wait period to occurs?

No NVM on something at this price point, I'd bet money on it. The state of the can opener is simply latched onto the MCU. A 'reset' mean power cycling the device. The battery brownout theory is the correct one, it just got stuck in some undefined state and will not turn off.