Little Victories with My Dymo Letratag "Tape Jam"

So my wife mentioned to me that our little, handheld Dymo Letratag label printer was stuck claiming a "Tape Jam" error.  She and I both looked at it, no tape to be seen jammed.  I poked around online a bit for any advice, all of which I found said "remove jammed tape" (and, sometimes, "clean the head and roller with a cotton swab dipped in alcohol").  I went ahead and cleaned it with the cotton swab, which it probably needed anyway, but no dice: "Tape Jam".  So I tried to manually move the roller with my finger., wondering if the gears were bound in a position that the motor couldn't turn them, triggering the "Tape Jam" error: it wouldn't budge.  Now these consumer-grade label printers are not expensive.  These companies appear to make their money selling the thermal label "tape" cartridges (like printer ink cartridges or razor blades).  So to throw this away and go buy another for $15 or $20 isn't a big deal.  But I like a challenge...

I went ahead and grabbed a small screw driver, removed the 4 AA batteries, and dug in.  After getting every screw I could find out, the motor driving the roller was still pinned in a fairly-inaccessible spot (between the plastic housing and circuit board).  But I could see that the motor uses a worm gear to drive the roller (which explains why I couldn't move the roller manually with my finger!).  I could not physically reach the worm gear (which ruled out me manually turning it with my finger), but I could clearly see it.

After a moment of consideration, I grabbed 2 AAs, wired in series, and two lengths of wire.  I connected one end of each wire to a battery, and then momentarily touched the other ends of the wires to the motor contacts (which were barely accessible to me).  The motor turned!

I (carefully) slapped the whole thing back together, and it was back to working fine!  Assuming the problem was "bound gears", I wonder if I had replaced all 4 AA batteries with fresh ones if the device would have given the motor enough power to "break" the bind...  I'll try that next time!