Clip+ fixing jack and broken volume control - Page 2

The jack on mine is loose but I have no loss of sound. I've been using a elastic band to hold the earphone jack in. 

er yeah, i just popped it open and stuffed some shrink wrap between the tip contact spring and the wall.

Hello,

Thanks so much for this tutorial on how to fix this loose heapdhone plug problem that has been nagging me for months (I was just about to buy a new DAP when I found this, so I ended up ordering a much cheaper soldering iron :)

However I'm a little clumsy and when I pried open my Sansa Clip+ case, the screwdriver went a little too far I think and broke one of the volume buttons, as you can see on this image. (sorry, I couldn't get the "insert image" function to work on this post). The broken button is the little part below the Sansa and it should be right where you see the "+" sign at the bottom of the circuit board. The other button is in place a few mm to the right. 

Now my question is: how do I put that part back ?

It doesn't look easy to solder (the part has connections where the upper part is plastic, and access to them is not easy) and actually the other volume button doesn't look soldered to me.

The part has two plastic pins and there are 2 small holes on the circuit board to hold the position the part but this doesn't hold it in place. Should I use glue for that ? won't glue damage the PCB ?

Hey all, I joined specifically so that I could tell you about how I went about fixing this in my Clip+.

I had had my Clip+ for about a year and a half when this started happening.  At first the jack was intermittent but not very wobbly and it still worked with some cables but not others so I thought that my cables were faulty.  Then it got very loose and started being intermittent with everything I used.

When I opened it up, I noticed that the same soldering point that the OP noticed was broken, so I soldered it and figured that would be the end of it.  However, that turned out to not be the only thing that was causing my troubles.  The jack was still moving around independent of the contacts (meaning that the plastic part that actually holds the audio cable was wiggling but the contacts weren't), causing the intermittent signal  I considered using hot glue, but I didn't want to do that because it would be a pain to get off if there was trouble later on.  So this is what I ended up doing:

Huddler (the most annoying forum software on earth) was having trouble embedding images, so I just linked to them on imageshack instead.  Sorry. :(

1) I cut a strip out of an old sock that was in my rag pile that was approximately the width of the jack and about twice as long as it was wide.

http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/8171/img6437w.jpg

2) I then folded it in half, placed it on top of the jack, and wedged it in between the jack and the battery using my jeweler's screwdriver (making sure that the strip of fabric did not extend beyond the outside of the jack, as it would be in the way of the audio cable).

http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/1849/img6441rd.jpg

3) Then I put the thing back together.  As I had planned and indeed hoped, the added pressure from the sock holds the jack very tightly in place and does not allow for any movement whatsoever.  The headphone cable doesn't even spin freely in the jack anymore. :)

http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/3176/img6444x.jpg

Anyway, I hope that this was helpful to people who either don't have access to hot glue/superglue or, like me, want something that is simpler and less likely to fail again in the future.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Madani 

The part has two plastic pins and there are 2 small holes on the circuit board to hold the position the part but this doesn't hold it in place. Should I use glue for that ? won't glue damage the PCB ?

 

If anybody could help, I'd appreciate it a lot !

 

Cheers

Did you ever get this fixed?

The switch that fell off mounts exactly the same way as the other one. The switches plastic pins go in the holes on the PCB, then the switches pads should line up with the solder pads on the PCB. A little bit of solder on each and you should be good to go... 

Just be careful of the left hand side of your PCB picture, that you don't bridge the pad to the resistor when you solder. The resistor in between the memory chip and the switch pad on the left in your pictures orientation.

The one on the right (same side as the other switch) connects to the right pad so it's not a worry.

Thanks for the replies.

Unfortunately, my player died after running Rockbox for a couple of days. Maybe the missing switch made the thing more unstable, I don't know, but anyway now it is hopelessely bricked, and the only hope of recovery is to wait until someone publishes a tutorial on how to unbrick the Clip+ (so far, I've been told, some people have managed to unbrick their Clip+ but the procedure is not well understood). So I bought a new Clip+, installed Rockbox, and have been keeping my fingers crossed since. When somebody publishes a reliable unbricking procedure, I'll have 2 Clip+. Yay !

What was wrong with your Clip+? I had mine for over a year and is working perfect with lastest rockbox release, 3.12.And the match with my W4R is wonderful.

I am thinking to upgrade the atock cable, hear the the SQ will improve a lot.