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[iRiver IHP120 H120] CF upgrade worthit? battery polarity?

post #1 of 16
10/13/08 at 1:43am
Thread Starter 
Hi All!

I've been lurking on these forums for ages and finally joined today as i've finally acquired a iRiver IHP120 (which I will be picking up next week!)

Have 2 quick questions that I hope somone can help me with as I may try and get the parts in preparation for the player:

- I'm thinking of replacing the battery. I've seen a 2200mah on eBay. these are compatible right? Also I've read on MisticRives wiki that polarity on some batterys must be switched? "swap the wires so that the polarity of the wires in the connector is reversed" How can I tell if polarity is correct or requires switching?

- I may want to increase memory. I've been looking for 1.8" compatible HardDrives and cannot seem to find any. Can anyone point me in the direction of one. Am I better off doing the CF upgrade? I've read write times are much slower with the CF cards and seeing I'll primarily be using this to record .wav onto, I need it writing as fast as possible. (Also transferring music onto it via USB must be slow too right?)

Any help or advice will be greatly appreciated guys!
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post #2 of 16
10/13/08 at 2:59am
That is the correct battery, no need to switch polarity, which only applies if you use iPod batteries.

Secondly, the CF upgrade is worth it, just buy a reasonably fast card. I've upgraded the battery and swapped in a 32GB CF card into my H320, and it is brilliant.

You'll need to run rockbox on it for the CF card though. Stock firmware doesn't work with the CF card, but I see no reason to use the stock firmware when rockbox is so mature on the H100/300 series iRivers.
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post #3 of 16
10/13/08 at 3:49am
Thread Starter 
Thanks for your reply mate!

Yup Rockbox already installed on the unit im getting... is there a specific version that will only accomodate the CF upgrade? Also.. may be a stupid question but if I remove the current harddrive, then won't I also in turn remove Rockbox? (Isn't the Rockbox firmware installed on harddrive?)

As for CF cards.. So any CF card will suffice huh? What brand did you use? I'm looking at an A-Data or Transcend.

Cheers!
r
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post #4 of 16
10/13/08 at 4:01am
You just need the most recent version of rockbox.

Here's how I would do it (And is how I did it for my H332):

1) Completely reinstall rockbox on the player whilst the hard disk is still in it, and make sure you install the 3.0 version.

2) Plug your CF card into a card reader, than into your computer. Format it to FAT32, than download a current build from the rockbox website and unzip it to the CF card.

3) Now, take the player apart, and replace the Hard disk with the CF card + Adapter combo.

4) Put it all together, turn it on to make sure everything loads, than screw the casing back on.

I used a Ridata 32GB 233X CF card http://www.ridata.com/eng/e_product_B_01.asp

And the adapter is available on ebay.
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post #5 of 16
10/13/08 at 10:56pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks again mate.. thats really informative. Cheers
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post #6 of 16
10/14/08 at 7:05pm
Interesting. Is the CF reader + card cheaper than a similar hard disk? Will it consume less power? It would also be interesting to keep the CF card out of the player so you can change cards, increasing the capacity in doing so. Have anyone tried?

Anyway, already bought a IDE to ZIF converter and the battery on the the iRiver is getting really wasted so this thread is informative.

RYC, can you report the battery life with stock battery (it's the 1300mAh one right?) versus the 2200 mAh new one.
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post #7 of 16
10/14/08 at 8:03pm
I got the 2200mAh battery and its polarity was reversed, even though it was sold for the IHP-120

the CF upgrade is worth it and then some
the player responds faster and no longer hangs up
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post #8 of 16
10/14/08 at 8:28pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by recephasan View Post
I got the 2200mAh battery and its polarity was reversed, even though it was sold for the IHP-120

the CF upgrade is worth it and then some
the player responds faster and no longer hangs up
interesting. im not too sure how to tell the difference.. how would i know if polarity is correct when i get mine? did you buy your 2200mAh from that same seller on fleabay?

also.. do you record on yours? notice any difference with CF card?

thanks
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post #9 of 16
10/16/08 at 6:47pm
Before you remove the OEM battery from your iRiver, check the polarity of the red and black battery leads where they plug into the small socket. The red lead goes toward the outside edge of the player. My 2200 mah cell was also wired backwards.

Considering the difficulty in safely removing the battery from the small plugin on the iRiver board, I will, in the future, just cut the leads and splice on the new battery, covering the splices with small lengths of shrinkwrap. (it is much easier removing the old plug than inserting the new one!) I had to shave off some plastic in order to be able to insert the plug without damaging anything.
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post #10 of 16
10/16/08 at 10:48pm
Thread Starter 
thanks for the advice HiFlight. i wasnt aware that the battery was *that* much of a headache to replace... now im a tad worried i dont mess it up! :\
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post #11 of 16
10/17/08 at 12:36am
You won't mess it up. I don't know how he managed to get an incorrectly setup battery, but its not big problem.
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post #12 of 16
10/26/08 at 5:59pm
Have my battery and HDD replaced(2200Mah and Toshiba 30gb MK3006GAL)
Well worth the money,still a great Flac player.
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post #13 of 16
10/26/08 at 6:51pm
How long lasted the default battery (1300 mAh I think) and how long does the new one last? Was it messy to fit all back inside ?
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post #14 of 16
11/9/08 at 3:06pm
Glad I found this thread. Just popped open my iHP 120 and pulled out the bad HDD.
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post #15 of 16
11/9/08 at 3:46pm
I just replaced the battery with the one mentioned in the OP. It went very smoothly, and the polarity was correct. I really liked that they even included the tools to replace the battery.

After a full charge, I've played the machine for about 5 hours so far (FLAC, original HDD) and the battery is still showing 80%, so at least that would project out to 20+ hours. I guess it should only get better with the CF card.
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