More iPod geekery

[annathepiper]

Grf. Doing the system restore does not appear to have made an impact on the battery behavior, because I'm still getting the same sort of behavior I was getting before I did the restore. The battery run I was doing earlier tonight lasted for 2 hours, 54 minutes; then, as I've been having to do for a while, I futzed with it repeatedly, trying to start it playing my GBS playlist over and over again. I got a few measures into "Lukey" before it'd die out. Then, after about ten attempts of that, I got it to go into a second burst of playing. But that one lasted only 19 minutes.

Now, after at least half an hour of trying to start it over and over again, I don't even seem to be getting enough battery response to power up the hard drive inside the thing.

Foo.

Comments

[snowqueene.livejournal.com]

My Ipod did the same exact thing. Needless to say it was after the one year free service expired. -_-, I definately feel your pain. I don't know why they made the battery so shotty. Mine won't even charge anymore so I have no Mp3 Player =(.

[annathepiper]

Well, I got this device in 2002, so it's held out a bit longer than that, and I'm still getting enough playtime out of it to be able to listen to at least a decent chunk of music at work.

Does the thing work if you plug it into its cradle? If so, you might try doing the procedure I did yesterday, which is outlined here. It was written by a guy with a Mac, but if you're using Windows, the directions will still more or less apply.

Ipod..

[(Anonymous)]

I take it there's no provision for an outside power supply(wall wart)-strictly batteries? IIRC, the batteries aren't all that easy to replace...Scott

Re: Ipod..

[annathepiper]

The iPod comes with a power supply that you can plug into the wall, sure. But that's not exactly convenient when you're out walking. :)

And no, the batteries aren't easy to replace. They are replaceable. Apple will replace the battery for you, but they charge a hundred bucks for it. Googling around, I've seen links to other places that will do it as cheaply as $50. Or, you can buy the battery and replace it yourself if you're suitably inclined. I'm not quite to the point that I have to do that yet, but I probably will be towards the end of the year when Dara and I have more money again.

iPoddery

[(Anonymous)]

How much are the batteries? I'm guessing they're soldered in-which isn't that bad a job. I'm also going to guess all the electronics are "surface mount" stuff(no holes in the PC board,tiny components glued above the copper traces,then soldered in place). Buy yourself some solder wick to remove the excess solder when undoing the old batteries-this prevents solder from accidentally bridging traces-easy to do when the components are tiny and close together.Use a 15 watt iron,with as fine a tip as you can find. Scott

Re: iPoddery

[annathepiper]

I don't think any soldering will be required, just based on what I see of the pictures of the iPod batteries shown here, which also answers the question of how much the actual battery costs: roughly $30. The only tricky part is probably going to be taking the iPod apart in the first place, and there are instructions pages for that on the web. When the time comes, I'll consult those.