buffpants24
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Nov 17, 2004
- Posts
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Last night I decided to have a quick listen with my Zen Micro. When I plugged my KSC75's into the Micro, I noticed there was a slight clicking noise. I wiggled the plug around inside the jack and the sound repeatedly went from mono to stereo. At first I suspected that the KSC75's were the problem, but a quick test with my e2's revealed that the problem was the Micro, not the headphones. I knew that the short would eventually result in a useless Micro, and since my warrantee was no longer (I purchased the Micro in January of '04), I decided to work on the Micro myself (besides, breaking the Micro would have just given me a good excuse for a new player
). About ten minutes of Googling brought me to this website. I followed the instructions, opened my Micro, and found that the problem was Creative only used a piece of solder about the size of a grain of sand to connect the headphone jack to the board. There was also nothing to relieve stress from the solder points when I inserted a plug into the jack, which slowly disconnected it from the board.
After about five minutes of soldering, my Micro was like new. Even though this was only my second time soldering, the fix was very easy. I also folded a small piece of paper and put it between the jack and the metal cover that was removed in step 11. Now my jack can't "float around" in that little space around the jack like it could before*, but stays in place on the side of the jack, making it almost impossible for the jack to separate from the board again. Mission accomplished!
*Here's a picture of the little space around the jack I mentioned earlier
(ignore the blue arrow).
(picture borrowed from hardwarezone.com)
Notice the little round gap around the headphone jack. The small piece of paper that I inserted forced the jack in the direction of the red arrow, so now the jack stays in place on the circuit board.
After about five minutes of soldering, my Micro was like new. Even though this was only my second time soldering, the fix was very easy. I also folded a small piece of paper and put it between the jack and the metal cover that was removed in step 11. Now my jack can't "float around" in that little space around the jack like it could before*, but stays in place on the side of the jack, making it almost impossible for the jack to separate from the board again. Mission accomplished!
*Here's a picture of the little space around the jack I mentioned earlier
(ignore the blue arrow).
(picture borrowed from hardwarezone.com)
Notice the little round gap around the headphone jack. The small piece of paper that I inserted forced the jack in the direction of the red arrow, so now the jack stays in place on the circuit board.
