Shanling M0 Pro - Ultra-Portable Hi-Fi Player, Now With Balanced Output!

[Record]

I'm busy with work and life most times but here are a few more photos for now in case I don't get a chance to go through all of the rest and upload them.
I think even just these few photos will help those who are interested, not just for the volume wheel issue but for other things too.
Maybe someday I'll also remove the PCB and post more photos including the battery or someone else will do so before then.
Thanks FranticPhil for the compliment. Appreciated. It's nice to help if possible.

This is a quality 30mm suction cup from a hardware store used for glass and mirrors.

Those 2 ESS chips are the same.

Here's a good revealing shot. PCB is attached with standard phillips screws. Battery connector at the bottom left (connector lifts up).
The infamous volume wheel potentiometer & power button is contained in the small aluminum box and attached to the PCB with a snap connector.
A tip when working on the player and not wanting to disconnect the display connector is to hold it up and back with a piece of tape attached to the body.

GigaDevice and Realtek chips. Bluetooth antenna gold connector partially seen to the right.

Here'a a closeup of the power button and volume potentiometer assembly during the 1st opening. You can clearly see in my player how the pot was not mounted flush to the board and as stated before, not enough solder on the pins resulting in the random volume response and eventually no response whatsoever. Normal movement of the wheel and button press resulted in the unsubstantial amount of solder on the pin(s) to become fully disconnected.
For people who perform a swap repair with a new assembly, it can help to reference this photo for reassembly because the power button sits slightly high and not exactly centered in the box, nor does it recess further into the pot.

Ok. The blackened aluminum wheel is designed to be pulled out with some decent but not excessive force. Then the brass collar nut can be unscrewed with a small pair of pliars. Finally, it is required to use pointed tweezers to pull out the small plastic shaft pin (see the next photo after this one).

Use a pair of pointed tweezers to pull out the plastic shaft pin that is held in place by the brass collar nut and keeps the power button/volume potentiometer assembly from being lifted out. With the pin removed, the assembly is then easily lifted out with a toothpick, etc. (see the next photo after this one). It is most certainly not required to perform any further disassembly of the player. The board can remain in place for example.

Here the power button/volume potentiometer assembly is freshly lifted out of its housing by placing a toothpick under the ribbon cable and leveraging it upward. Be careful as the cable is fragile and do not perform this action too many times. I learned the hard way and eventually broken the cable fully in half from too much diagonstic work!

This final photo for now is just a shot of that mysterious push button switch. Like I said, maybe it's for diagnosing purposes and those 4 pads might be for jtag. I hastily pressed it out of curiosity and thankfully it did not reset the player. Shanling representative, do you know what this is for?

That's all for now. I just wanted to at least get these up here in case I never get around to processing more photos. I really believe these will be quite helpful though.

Let's get more M0 buyers and fans on board. And no I am absolutely not paid by Shanling. Just passionate. I've said so many times that I think this is a great player and quite future-proof. And one to hold the reign in this niche genre class for quite a while. Let's keep it popular and in production and maybe Shanling or a passionate 3rd party working with Shanling will even setup a proper storefront for easily ordered and affordable spare parts.
The most mechanical item and most prone to failure is of course this volume wheel assembly. I'm trying to help show and simplify the repair process. We just need the support on the other end for the ease and affordability of ordering replacements. Many people can certainly perform this repair on their own.

Oh, and someone to hopefully port Rockbox OS/firmware to this player some day in the future! To inlcude of course recognizing the .m4b extenion if Shanling never gets around to making the super simple and easy adjustment for that in the firmware.

Thanks again Shanling for this great device!

 

[endgame4]

The mysterious button is probably to enable USB boot. This is a feature of the Ingenic X1000 and related devices. The original M0 also has one.

In the USB boot mode you can send commands and data to the device over USB. Useful for development and perhaps rescuing a bricked device.

Instructions for the M0 pro and original M0 are here: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/sha...w-firmware-v3-6.874859/page-430#post-18432477

Yours has the button that his is lacking.

 

[Shanling]

This final photo for now is just a shot of that mysterious push button switch. Like I said, maybe it's for diagnosing purposes and those 4 pads might be for jtag. I hastily pressed it out of curiosity and thankfully it did not reset the player. Shanling representative, do you know what this is for?

This button is sued during flashing firmware onto the unit.

Shanling, does Shanling itself manufacturer this potentiometer/power button assembly or do you source it from a different manufacturer?

This part is not made in-house, we have it from other supplier.

 

[Record]

This part is not made in-house, we have it from other supplier.

Thank you for that info. I might as well at least ask, do you know who makes it or who is sending it to you? As I said before, I see this as a critical component of the player because it is mechanical, receives the most physical movement and is most prone to failure, so, I feel it's important to know the most about it as possible. Thank you.

By the way, speaking of a power button as part of this assembly and its possible failure, it would be very helpful as a backup alternative if there was a way to immediately power off the player with the press of a software screen button somewhere within the interface, instead of enabling auto-shutdown after an idling time of 1 or 5 minutes. In a sense, a software power button as a backup to the physical power button in case it ever fails.
Or instead, maybe something like a 5 second 2 finger press on the sleeping screen to power off the player. Powering on the player without the power button can be done right away by plugging the player into USB power.

 

[losber]

volume potentiometer

To me it looks like SMD rotary encoder, moreover it marked with SW100 on the flex PCB so it's switch but rotary switch - encoder. But anyway it's very difficult to find out which manufacturer part number it has.

 

[Record]

Thanks for your input. Good point. It seems that it is an encoder instead of a potentiometer.
I forgot to add an important reference during my extensive online searching before I posted the content with the photos. I believe that I found the manufacturer of the encoder itself, I just have to see if they also make the whole assembly too.

This looks like the same exact part, an encoder made by TT Electronics, specifically exactly this one https://www.ttelectronics.com/Products/Passive-Components/Encoders/EN05HS (H for top adjustment, S for SMT)
Here is the PDF spec sheet (see the model on page 3, EN05HS1212NHH) https://www.ttelectronics.com/TTElectronics/media/ProductFiles/Datasheet/EN05.pdf

Even though it indicates "top adjustment", it is still the correct part because with their "side adjustment" version the 3 pins face the wrong direction. The M0 is simply just using it in a side orientation.
When I get more time I will research to see if TT makes the ribbon cable assembly with the power button and board connector too. But maybe that's Shanling's ribbon cable and board connector and they're just soldering on the TT encoder and power button.
TT Electronics has several locations in the US and UK and could be much easier to source the encoder if a user has a problem with the component itself and not, in my case, a loose pin or pins and later, a torn ribbon cable (my fault) to where just getting another encoder will not help me as I need a new assembly. It would be nice if TT makes the assembly too, or I can find it elsewhere, being both easily purchases and affordable.

Obviously Shanling will know if that is their ribbon cable or not. And can maybe now confirm if that is a TT Electronics encoder, which it definitely seems to be.

In case anyone is wondering, FPC on the ribbon cable is just a generic term in the industry and refers to Flexible Printed Circuit.
It is also interesting that Shanling has a device with the model number of UP5 which seems from the external view to have a similar type of volume wheel/power button. So maybe the UP5 text on this assembly denotes it originally being used in the UP5 as that unit was released before the M0 Pro.

I really hope that I can find an easier and more affordable resource for this power button-encoder ribbon cable assembly! And for any user who has a volume and/or power button issue, swapping the complete assembly is much easier than attempting to either replace the encoder or push button itself or re-flow the solder on the pin/s.

 

[serg17]

Hi guys!

Thanks for the detailed instructions on disassembling the player. Using them, I managed to fix the volume wheel, which had completely stopped working.

I think the issue is exactly the same as with a mouse scroll wheel—when you scroll up, the document page either wobbles in place or scrolls down instead. Yes, it's an issue with the resistor-potentiometer. But why exactly it malfunctions, I'm not entirely sure. I suspect it's due to insufficient contact pressure of its spring-loaded elements against the internal rotating part of the resistor.

So, here’s what I did: I poured some alcohol into it to degrease the internal contacts and inserted a spacer made from a small piece of a matchstick between the loose resistor casing and the power button of the player to press and secure the resistor in place.

And, oh wow, it worked! The volume control is back to normal. Video attached.
Image and Video

 

[Record]

Hi Shanling representative. When you get a chance, thank you:

1) When ordering the replacement volume wheel does it come as the full assembly of the rotary encoder/potentiometer + power button + ribbon cable with connector as shown in my photos and in your video that you referred to?

2) Do you accept another form of payment other than PayPal? I don't have PayPal.

3) I know that you do not manufacture the rotary encoder and it seems to be made by TT Electronics as I mentioned above but do you manufacture the complete assembly by soldering on the encoder + power button to a ribbon cable? Or is this too also sourced from someone else?

There seems to be a quality assurance issue when soldering the encoder to the ribbon cable as has been indicated by I and Serg17 so far. In my strong opinion, not enough solder on at least 1 pin and as I stated, the assembly should actually have some sort of shim in the housing as Serg did, in order to prevent movement, mostly from the power button presses which can eventually loosen a pin not having a substantial amount of solder.

Thank you again for your time and help.




Hi Serg17 and welcome. Thank you for the input. And I'm very glad that you had a fairly easy workaround and can enjoy your great device again!

I definitely had a loose ribbon cable attachment of the potentiometer which seems that you had the same, and a small shim as you mentioned would have helped but unfortunately I got ahead of myself and first attempted glue then attempted to resolder the 3 contacts of the rotary encoder which after too much fondling of the ribbon cable, it eventually broke in half!
In my case, it definitely was the loose pin/pins attached to the ribbon cable and not an internal issue with the encoder/potentiometer because when I put pressure on the area of the ribbon cable where the pins are, the volume functioned just fine. I also inspected under 10x magnifcation and could clearly see a very minimal amount of solder and a loose connection. It may be visible in one of my photos.
In the photo that you provided it is seen that the small piece of a wooden matchstick is at the opposite corner of the encoder's 3 pins so this is logical as to why it works, it is putting the required pressure on the loose pin or pins.
So you just proved that someone else out there had the same loose pins problem.

It seems that the assembly process of that encoder to the ribbon cable is less than ideal. And the other issue is that this assembly is not mounted very securely within the small aluminum housing. There is some movement and over time it can loosen a pin especially after a certain amount of power button presses, which could be happening to some users if there is not enough solder.

As I stated, I wish I did this shim mod in the beginning! Now I have to get a whole new assembly that must include the ribbon cable and in the meantime it's very inconvenient having to connect the player to USB power in order to turn it on and use the timer to have it power off.

I've attached Serg's photo here in this post which is helpful to show the shim mod to others, if in fact they have the same loose pin/pins issue.

 

[GrammyDickles]

Is it possible to order a replacement audio jack for the M0 pro?

 

[serg17]

Is it possible to order a replacement audio jack for the M0 pro?

In Ukraine, I think this is practically impossible. In the USA, you might try. Try to find an official service center of the Shanling company in the USA; perhaps they can order the spare parts. Unfortunately, the company provides extremely poor service for its products.

 

[Shanling]

Hi Shanling representative. When you get a chance, thank you:

1) When ordering the replacement volume wheel does it come as the full assembly of the rotary encoder/potentiometer + power button + ribbon cable with connector as shown in my photos and in your video that you referred to?

2) Do you accept another form of payment other than PayPal? I don't have PayPal.

3) I know that you do not manufacture the rotary encoder and it seems to be made by TT Electronics as I mentioned above but do you manufacture the complete assembly by soldering on the encoder + power button to a ribbon cable? Or is this too also sourced from someone else?

There seems to be a quality assurance issue when soldering the encoder to the ribbon cable as has been indicated by I and Serg17 so far. In my strong opinion, not enough solder on at least 1 pin and as I stated, the assembly should actually have some sort of shim in the housing as Serg did, in order to prevent movement, mostly from the power button presses which can eventually loosen a pin not having a substantial amount of solder.

Thank you again for your time and help.

For payment, this is something you need to check with the shop team, not something we would be in charge.

We get it as assembled from 3rd party.

 

[Heilagr]

Dear Shanling representative.

Could you add just 2 necessary functions to the next update:

1. Support for the WavPack (wv) format 32bit 192 or 32bit 384 with cue. Only this format (wv) supports 32-bit data.
Moreover, the player already supports playback of 32bit 384, but in wav, this is not a compressed format and the files take up much more space.
WavPack (wv) is just a container and its support is very necessary for Vinyl rips.
Many people have large libraries of vinyl rips in the WavPack (wv) format, as it allows the highest quality storage of music in 32bit 384.

2. Support for waking up the device by double-clicking on the screen instead of pressing a button during background playback. This function will extend the life of the device.

These functions will make this wonderful device even better.

 

[Astrogoth]

Will there be a firmware update beyond 1.6?

 

[Heilagr]

Fiio added support for WV WavPack to their player app. So when will Shanling add it?

 

[oppman99]

Having a Bluetooth issue with my m0 pro. I use ldac with flac files. I get stuttering and the codec drops to apt x and then even lower. Happens with multiple different receiving devices. No issues as all with my older m0se. I am on firmware 1.5. Any suggestions for a possible fix would be appreciated.