ipod

damn expensive pieces of technology, mine is about 18 months old and so out of warrenty, whats wrong with it is the head phone jack only works on one side but if you press it hard enough it will start working normally, abit hard to do all the time though. I dont know if anyone is albe to help me but apple wont fix it as its out of warrenty and they dont repair them the just throw them away. i think all it needs is the headphone jack changing but im not technically minded enough to do it and was wondering if anyone else knows how to sort it or knows of somebody who could look at it without charging millions of pounds for it 8-)

Cheers

Idea, visit an outlet and compare Jack plugs (dinna be rude) see if any are a wee bitty longer?
trim the one ye haiv so that it goes in farther?
Or
what aboot the wee corner mobile fone folks they may be able to get in and fix it

just guessing as its such a waste if thats aw thats wrong.

Good luck

It's a 'dry joint'

The solder between the socket and the circuit board has snapped. Pull the covers off and resolder it.

heres a solution, but its not quite ideal!

Buy one of the car charger thingy's that plugs into the bottom of the unit, also has the wire coming out of it to connect into a car stereo.

You may then need to buy a female-female 1/8th jack adapter but at least you get a headphone socket that works.

andybloke wrote:

It's a 'dry joint'

The solder between the socket and the circuit board has snapped. Pull the covers off and resolder it.

tricky - as far as i know they are sealed units.

VentureOverland wrote:

andybloke wrote:

It's a 'dry joint'

The solder between the socket and the circuit board has snapped. Pull the covers off and resolder it.

tricky - as far as i know they are sealed units.

Kieran has a hammer

Other than the tiny ones, they do just pop apart. There's websites and videos on youtube with instructions for getting them apart (Look for the ipod battery replacment tutorials).
The various models vary in complexity, but you don't have to completely dismantel them to get at the solder joints on the headphone socket on most.

i reckon being that a guitar pick would pop them apart so some one told me a while back, never had the balls to try it with mines as its 3 years old and not broke

if you could find MY ipod charger that YOU lost that I would like back then you could borrow it and use the head phone jack in the base untill YOU fix it

the one that i gave to you at manby 8-)

Stop it, boys!

Had a look inside a friends ipod earlier...
If it's like that one, use something thin and strong (small screwdriver) to pry the back off level with the >> (FFwd) symbol. Gently twist the whole thing as you do, and it pops apart. Battery may be fixed into the back case with double sided tape, so unplug that, then ease the back away...kinda gently wobble it free. Apple will charge you £50 to do that!
Depending on the model, you'll either see the back of the circuit board where the headphones connect, or you'll see the headphone socket. If you see the back of the board, gently bend the board up slightly in the middle, as you bend the bottom of the case away, and it all pops apart, but is still attached by wires - the board should have enough free play to move it far enough to see the connector. Be very careful not to pull the ribbon connectors free as you do this.

You may see that one of the solder tabs on the headphone socket is grey rather than silver, and may have a visible dark crack on it. If the solder is "gloss" rather than "matt" it may have pulled the track off of the board (when you wobble the socket a gap will appear between the solder and the board). Two out of three ipods I've looked inside had the same fault, and the board wasn't damaged. If the track's damaged ... phone me. Otherwise ...

With a small soldering iron, heat the connections on the socket while holding the solder to the joint at the same time*. The bad joints are because the sockets melt easily and were originally produced with Brussels Approved lead free solder (which melts at a higher temperature than non-EU approved stuff). If you fix them with the softer, cooler melting, old style solder you should be able to get a nice shiny joint that'll outlive the original. You have to heat it with the solder already on the joint, though, or you'll weaken the glue under the socket/track, or melt the socket. Be quick but clean.

The three ipods I've looked inside all have surface-mounted headphone sockets (but there are apparently about a dozen different designs). I'm glad I switched career before the ipod - place I used to work gets several per week in for repair, usually solder joints on the sockets failed.

* Put soldering iron to one edge of the pin, solder to the other. Don't put the solder on the iron. As soon as it's hot enough over the whole joint, the solder will flow.

Quor. You learn something every day!

VentureOverland wrote:

Quor. You learn something every day!

Indeed!
Today a colleague learned "Don't leave your ipod on your desk at lunch".

What's an ipod?

It's not a dry joint ... it looks like ... coffee? With milk?

Oh, and the battery was completely flat, making it quite difficult to test!