Leadfree solder strikes again - Ipod Video 30GB headphone jack

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Bought this ipod from a friend for $28. Worked fine except an intermittent right headphone. One would think the flex would have to be replaced. It's just $5, but it'd take a while to arrive from China, and i have other plans. I want to either sell it quickly or trade it for a phone.

It's been taken apart before (it wasn't his actually, it was his friend's) so the case was fairly loose. There was also a fair bit of dust between the screen cover and the LCD, so i took care of that first. Removed the headphone jack and hold button flex, et voila, one visibly cracked joint. Redone, and... Right side worked perfectly, left side cut out entirely. But i quickly noticed that bending the flex a tad where it goes under the hard drive, returns the left channel... Put a piece of foam in there to have the HDD press onto the flex cable and keep it in place, and assembled it back together. Success! I've pressed on, twisted, shaken the ipod and it never cut out again. As long as the hard drive never moves out of position (and i can't see that happening as long as the thing stays in one piece), that flex will stay put.

Gotta love $0 repairs.

[tom66]

Re: Leadfree solder strikes again - Ipod Video 30GB headphone jack

Is it lead free or just due to board flex/numerous insertions and removals?

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Leadfree solder strikes again - Ipod Video 30GB headphone jack

It is lead-free. Of course, the number of insertions and removals of the headphone jack had to do with it, but headphone jacks rarely break by themselves.

Attaching a headphone jack to a flex cable isn't too great of an idea, however, it is the solder and not the flex which failed at the jack. If the soldering would have been good, then the flex would've broken, requiring replacement. This did not happen - the joint simply cracked and could be fixed simply by reheating with the iron and adding some leaded solder.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Leadfree solder strikes again - Ipod Video 30GB headphone jack

I ordered a high capacity battery (580mAh) from China a couple weeks ago, as the original one was kinda flakey, it lasted for about 4-5 hours when it should've lasted around 16 - basically, with my 2 hours total usage per day, i should've been charging it once a week, and i had to charge it every 2 days.

New battery arrived today and it's working fine, it arrived charged to 40%, i'm charging it fully now. Headphone flex still holding up.

[tom66]

Re: Leadfree solder strikes again - Ipod Video 30GB headphone jack

Great. Enjoy another bit of consumerism, but for much less! It's a long time since I've used an ipod of any sort, can you put any tracks on there or are you restricted to iTunes?

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Leadfree solder strikes again - Ipod Video 30GB headphone jack

The Ipod Video Gen 6 is the last generation that runs Rockbox (www.rockbox.org) stable. Which means, complete freedom from itunes (use it as any regular removable drive), and a lot of extras, among them:

Database, sort by artist/album/track/genre and a bunch of other things (like Apple firmware), with search function (Apple firmware doesn't have that), or classic file/folder browser if that's what you prefer.

Theme support, there are a lot of nice themes for it.

5-band fully parametric equalizer, with separate bass and treble controls on top of that. The stock ipod firmware only has presets, and they all distort! Rockbox puts you in control of all that. It turns out that the DSP hardware is actually quite capable, and is able to get extremely good sound out of $40 Sony Walkman in-ears.

And last but not least, games, including Doom!