Comment by namuol

Comment by namuol 10 months 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 10 months 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 10 months 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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- forgotacc240419 10 months ago
  
  Oh yeah that's way beyond me! I might do a mini to micro mod first, that seems relatively quite easy
  The common headphone jack issue is that one of the pins comes loose very easily but that's a very simple fix of adding some extra solder. Beyond that the audio port gradually gets looser to the point headphones will very easily fall out; I think if you just never remove the headphones this will be much less likely to happen.
  The main failures I've seen on eBay are: - dead battery (these are often in amazing condition otherwise because they were bought and hardly used) - loose audio jack (simple solder fix but may have the looseness issues) - broken membrane buttons (probably not very fixable?) - faded screen (probably has lots of other issues but generally usable)
  
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  namuol 10 months ago
  
  Yeah the buttons are actually tactile switches - it was hard to find ones that fit but eventually I found a good match on Ali express. You want 4.8x4.8x0.55mm smd thin film tactile switches. [1]
  Only one button was malfunctioning but I replaced them all since they looked pretty worn.
  If you’re thinking of switching to micro usb you might as well try usb-c. AFAIK you’ll still need to deal with alignment issues. The resistors are only necessary if you want to use modern PD chargers - they make little boards with these attached already but it may be impossible to fit one of those.
  [1] https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256806815314132.html
  
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  forgotacc240419 10 months ago
  
  Probably worth posting your work somewhere, I feel like there's probably a subreddit or two that would be interested (maybe the Rockbox forum too?).
  Could definitely make a decent markup buying broken ones and reselling them all fixed up too; I got seven "broken" ones a few months ago on eBay for $20 and almost all of them just had dead batteries
  
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