Does your iPod LOD spoil easily?

[vjcs20]

I've been an iPod user for many years and I've been using it with a line-out dock with mini-to-mini cable to my portable amplifier and IEMs. Over the past 2 years, I've noticed that my LODs tends to have problems after about 6 months of usage.

The symptoms appear in the form of intermittent disconnection when I'm walking or when I exert pressure on the dock at certain angles. When that happens, I'll have to get a new LOD. With the new LOD, applying pressure at various angles doesn't cause any intermittent disconnection.

Has anyone else faced this problem? Or am I the only one?

[gritzcolin]

I have heard it before but I just try to not have any pressure on it.

[duff138]

I started out with a Silver Dragon Send Station Pocket Dock to straight mini. I started having problems, so I sent it back and for $10 had the send station removed and it was converted into a mini-mini cable. I use this now and have gone through 2 TURBODOCKS. After a year or so they both lost sound in one channel. I recently bought a LOD off ebay, similar to a turbodock, for $12. I figure if this last a year I won't mind having to spend another $12 for another one.
I'm hesistate to buy a more expensive one, but maybe I'd have better luck with them.

[vjcs20]

Originally Posted by gritzcolin

I have heard it before but I just try to not have any pressure on it.

It's kinda hard not to exert pressure on it because I place my rig inside my bag and it'll definitely exert pressure somehow on the LOD... unless I hold it in my hands...

[kurt6652]

I had the exact same thing happen to my LOD last week. I'm now using my mini to mini that came with my amp. I at first thought the problem was with my amps plug sockets, but switching to a new cable solved the problem.

[sHaRkKaE]

Try to place your rig with your LOD and cable on top. It helps to preserve it. Or you could try placing it within a pouch and secure it upright. This should help prevent stuff from placing pressure on the dock/cable.

[labrat]

LOD in your pocket

An old problem, discussed previously several times.
And new LOD's are still put together the same way!
By the way, my LOD is still in use without any problems, after almost 4 years and travelling around the world a couple of times!

[royalcrown]

The best way to get around LOD failure is to DIY the plug. Get finely stranded cabling to reduce damage due to stress on the cable, and then drill a hole in the casing of the LOD to route the cable through. Give the LOD maybe 1-2 inches of a kink near the termination point on the ipod dock connector side for strain relief, and then hot glue/clamp/whatever the casing-wire point. This will give basically a right-angle connector. Hot glue the pin on the LOD as well. This will give excellent strain relief, and if you get finely stranded cabling, the flexing shouldn't be a problem. I think in the thread linked above someone might have done something similar to this. Of course, depending on the effort done, it may look a bit shoddy, but hey, it works. Another benefit is that the gentle curve used with straight plugs (which looks nice and elegant) is bypassed with just a straight line of cable, which will limit the bumps it may get (if you pair the "right angle" dock connector with a right angle mini connector). Sorry if this is overly convoluted; I don't know how to explain it any better >_>

EDIT: If you want, I would be able to build one, for minimal labor costs. However, I can't guarantee that it will look very pretty (I'm not the best with artistically drilling holes) and I really am not up to the task of building several cables for lots of people. That being said, I'm sure someone with more expertise and/or time to do this can be commissioned on this forum. Or you could do it yourself, which I most highly recommend if you know how to solder. I did build one for a friend before, and he said it worked fine, but it didn't look as nice as the LODs touted here.