Zune: Followup

I really anticipated it would have taken me a longer time to get around to doing this, but was given some opportunities, and actually got it done, here’s how it went.  As soon as I posted my last blog post I went out to a coffee shop where one of my friends worked.  I picked up someone on the way, we call him British, and I knew he had a zune (and is probably one of my 3 readers at this point) so I had him bring his charging cable along.  Now I never really expected to have the thing power up on the first try, but I was really hoping it would (it did not).

We’ll skip ahead in the night to after I got home (~4 am), I was strangely motivated to try and take the thing apart, but didn’t want to ruin it.  I went out in search of websites with disassembly guides and found one as the first result of my first search (I have mad google-fu skills).  The guide (seen here) says to use one of those plastic safety tools as to not mar the surface of your pod, but I don’t have one (nor will I get one to disassemble a free zune) so I used what I had, a $0.99 aco hardware box cutter.  I used this tool without fear because the 30GB zune has a surprisingly large gap in it’s main body construction so it was easy to work the long flat dell edge of the knife in there and pop it open (I may do a video, but not at this time).

So, after getting it open I layed it all out, as seen in these pictures (camera phone, I will replace them when I can find my better camera).

It’s kinda hard to see, but the main board has corrosion all down the right side. I plan to try rubbing alcohol on it to see if I can clean it up, and if I’m extremely lucky, make it work again. If I can not I may try to obtain a zune that is broken is some other way (with a working main board) for really cheap, or if all else fails I have repair parts for another common consumer electronic device (I love to have repair parts) and an amazingly small 30GB 1.8″ ZIF hard drive (MK3008GAL) to do whatever with (maybe increase internal storage of my EEE 701?).

 

ADDENDUM: shortly after this I gave the device to a friend who said he could fix it (I knew he couldn’t) and I ended up giving up parts that could have gone to fix a different friend’s zune.  You can see where I come down on doing that again.

Zune: New Project

So, my first blog post just happens to be my first new project since starting a blog.  There are many more un-finished and un-started projects to post on, but listing them all right now would waste my time and yours, so I’ll start with this one: free broken zune.  that’s a phrase I’ll probably be saying a lot, “free broken X”.  This zune is a white 30GB model that won’t power on.  The previous owners said that one day they let it run down too much and then it just wouldn’t re-charge.  I plan on trying several different strategies to repair this zune.

First: I plan to borrow a friend’s charging cable to see if it’s something as simple as that (although I don’t think so, because I’m pretty sure they had a boom box dock for it that would keep it charged while it played)  or at least continuity check the cable with a pinout of the zune side connector.

Second: I would remove the case and battery and attempt to power the zune with a battery pack of my own design (probably a bad idea, but as a test I don’t think it’ll kill it).

Third: try and re-solder the zune connector if broken off the board or bypass it with a hardwired usb cable to see if that’s the problem.

Fourth: buy a new battery from an aftermarket seller (maybe dealextreme or ebay).

Fifth: at least I can probably rip a working 30 GB drive out of this thing, or maybe sell it on craigslist, or maybe both…. maybe not.

Any way I slice it  come out on top because I got a free zune, usb cable, and wall outlet usb adapter.