Comment by namuol

Comment by namuol 5 hours ago

You can get “broken” ones on EBay pretty cheap. Be careful prying them open though - there’s no aftermarket shells unfortunately.

I spent a weekend not long ago upgrading a broken Sansa Clip+ with a new battery, RockBox, and a USB-C port - first one with USB-C AFAIK. Oh and I replaced all the SMD buttons too while I was at it.

I’m very happy with how it turned out! I only wish I knew how to do something more advanced like adding Bluetooth audio capability that doesn’t just hook into the DAC output and sound terrible.

forgotacc240419 3 hours ago

How was the usb c installation? Feels a bit beyond my soldering skills. I mainly use a zip but I put together a very slim mini to c cable for my Clip+ that does the job.

Don't suppose you could tell me the name of the part they use for the headphone jack? I can find loads that look almost right but never the exact model

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namuol an hour ago

It was pretty intense, but mostly because I’m clumsy and didn’t plan anything.
There’s not a lot of room on the board, so I soldered 0402 resistors directly to the pins on the port to allow it to work with modern PD chargers, and I had to expose a few traces so I could jump the pins since it didn’t align with the mini usb pads. Fortunately I was able to solder its feet to the main structural pads and it’s a good firm connection.
I bought an assorted usb-c port kit from Amazon with something like 10 varieties and chose the port that best fit onto the board. I needed to bend the legs a bit but it worked.
I used a digital microscope and fine solder tips. There’s no “easy” way to do this that I’m aware of, especially since I chose low melt solder to avoid melting the port’s plastic, which meant the jumper wire conducted enough heat to desolder the other connection if I didn’t work quickly!
This experience had me wondering if I could design a little thin adapter pcb to make the process less error prone, but I’ve never done anything like that before…
What’s wrong with your audio port? To find a replacement you might want to get some cheap calipers and measure a bunch of stuff to compare with components on digikey/mouser/aliexpress.
Or you may just be able to repair it instead of replacing it. Could be it just needs its pins reflowed to the board if you haven’t tried that yet. I hope you can fix it - good luck!

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