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iPod Dangerous When Wet
puggsincyberspace writes "What do you do when your mom washes your iPod? Fix it, of course. A teenager in Australia found out the hard way that messing with the insides of his iPod is dangerous and needed medical attention after it exploded."
In my day, when you washed your (1st generation, flash-based) mp3 player, you just put it on top of your (17", radition levels that burn out brains) monitor with the memory card out for a few hours to dry
Same with cellphones, flash keys, etc. But noooo, someone had to go and put rustable moving parts into mp3 players...
My ipod went into a river as I was jumping from boat to bank at one point. It was in for maybe 10 seconds, so presumably shorter than the washing machine and without the associated stresses; I popped the back off, poured the water out, detached the battery and tilted the HD away from the motherboard, put it above a radiator for a few days to be sure, then put it back together again and it worked absolutely fine, with no loss of battery life or memory errors.
There may have been something happening with the washing powder in solution or water being forced into various places by the high Gs at high spin; however as I opened up my ipod it was completely inert. Something really strange must have happened to pierce his battery (solid Li skids around and pops a little when placed on top of water); however then you would expect it to have happened inside the washing machine. The implication there is that he pierced the battery with the screwdriver, which is no mean feat since it's around a 180 corner when you're trying to get in. Makes me wonder exactly what he was trying to do at the time.
Browsing with +2 to insightful posts and a higher threshold makes the average post seen seem a lot more ingenious
I had a similar problem with my Apple ibook power supply when it stopped working one day. I passed by my local Apple repair shop who fixed it by breaking it open with a screw driver, changed a transistor (or something like that..), then glued it back.
It cost me 5 Euros instead of ~ 90 Euros. (Power supplies are strangely more expensive in European countries rather than in North America).
The tech told me he does this all the time and it's simple as hell.
I know that, from all things, non-tech people should not open their power supplies (PS). And I don't mind having a yellow-glued suspiciously looking PS, but knowing how Apple PS have/had a tendancy to break for silly reasons (at least with G3 ibooks), it would have been nice of them to have a tech-friendly way to fix them.
Running a thin, blunt knife e.g. a small butter knife or screwdriver around the joins should reveal where the plastic lugs are. Then insert similar shims at each locked point until the container pops open. It takes a bit of practice but if you're careful you soon learn the tolerance of the material - i.e. how hard to apply pressure before anything snaps. Also - check there aren't any screws hidden behind sticky labels etc. by running your finger over them and feeling for giveaway circular depressions. When you're putting it back together bend the lugs out a bit so they catch.
You might want to consider investing in a mouse with screws - the couple of Logitech meeces I use are only secured with a couple of easily-accessible screws. Which is handy if I need to clean them or do simple maintenance such as pushing the optical sensors back in line.
insightful? INSIGHTFUL?
The power density of a *jelly donut* is higher than TNT, FFS! Batteries can't even hold a CANDLE to a JELLY DONUT!