From: mat holton <mat_at_lessermatters.co.uk>
Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2006 09:26:05 +0000

I have a pefectly working JBRFM with one slight problem, the slightest
touch of the mic socket causes the left channel to go.
I must fix it really, the battery lasts for 19 hours!

Neon John wrote:
> As I noted yesterday, both my trusty old JBR and its backup quit.
> Fortunately I'd planned for such dire emergencies.
>
> I got to do what is for most folks, a long gone act - I broke the
> shrink wrap off the box of a brand new JBR, one of the ones I hoarded
> when production ended. What a nifty experience :-)
>
> I had forgotten just how bad the Archos firmware was. Ditto that old
> Hitachi hard drive. I stuck ROMbox and the audio book I'd been
> listening to on the original drive and used it for a day. Gawd, what
> a boat anchor. I thought the drive was crashing every time it parked
> the head. And battery life was back down to a lousy 8 hours or so
> playing 32kbps book files.
>
> I dug the low power Toshiba 100 gig drive out of the failed unit and
> placed it in the new one. Nirvana! Almost total silence and battery
> life is back in the 16 hour range.
>
> BTW, for cloning a drive, this freebie utility is very nice.
>
> http://www.xxclone.com/
>
> This utility is not a sector copier. It copies files just like xcopy
> but does tricks to copy the registry and other windows files when
> cloning a windows boot drive. A major feature of file-by-file copy is
> that it inherently defrags the destination drive.
>
> Anyway, I've serviced/upgraded quite a few JBRs, mine and others, and
> have developed a procedure for making it last a long time. This
> procedure addresses the mechanically faulty points.
>
> On just about every JBR I've opened up that has had any use at all has
> had the earphone jack, the power jack or both at least a little loose.
> They're held down by tiny, thin solder webs that are easily broken by
> force on the jacks. The same situation exists for the board-to-board
> connections at the battery connectors.
>
> The first thing I do to each jack is apply an alligator clip to press
> the jack tightly against the board. I resolder each connection. Then
> I apply thin superglue to the juncture between the jack and board and
> touch it with a drop of accelerator after the glue wicks in. This
> practically welds the jack to the board. I've never had one break
> free even when dropping the unit and having it land on a connector.
>
> I do a similar thing to the board junctions at the battery connectors.
> These joints are HIGHLY stressed, as the batteries significantly flex
> the boards. First, I grip the device in a Panvice. Then I apply a
> weight to press the end board onto the side board. A touch of the
> soldering iron and some flux reflows the solder. Then I peel back the
> metallic tape in the battery compartment to expose the back side of
> the joint. I clean it with alcohol and then run a fairly heavy bead
> of medium thickness superglue (hobby shop) to make a fillet between
> the boards. A touch of accelerator makes it set instantly.
>
> This forms an extremely rigid and strong joint and yet it can be
> released if necessary with some superglue remover or acetone.
>
> The last thing I do is gently squeeze the opening of the headphone
> jack with smooth jaw needle nose pliers while gently heating the
> plastic with hot air using an SMT hot air needle with the heat turned
> down. The objective is to make the opening slightly oval so as to
> tightly grip the headphone jack. This eliminates the annoying problem
> of the cord pulling out during vigorous activities.
>
> Button 'er up and she's ready.
>
> John
> ---
> John De Armond
> See my website for my current email address
> http://www.neon-john.com
> Cleveland, Occupied TN
> Don't let your schooling interfere with your education-Mark Twain
>
>
>
>
Received on 2006-11-27