General > General Technical Chat

Aging Airpods...

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rdl:

--- Quote from: apis on March 26, 2019, 02:05:19 pm ---I was looking at a Thinkpad but the T-series is pretty pricey for private individuals.

--- End quote ---

Have you considered used?

I've been looking off and on for a T-520 of some kind on ebay. If I actually needed a laptop, I probably would've bought one by now. I've seen some pretty good deals go by, even assuming I would probably want a new battery and possibly SSD and RAM upgrades.

CatalinaWOW:
I think you can thank the legal industry for these encrypted batteries.  It looks to me like protection from lawsuits over burning laptops.  A lawyer won't go after some corner shop that does battery replacement, there isn't any money there.  They go for the deep pockets.  So the original vendor does whatever they can to show they did due diligence in preventing problems.

james_s:
That's exactly what it is. If someone uses a cheap aftermarket battery in their Lenovo laptop and it burns their house down they don't go after the random Chinese seller they got the battery from, they blame Lenovo. That said, I've got several T series Thinkpads with cheap aftermarket batteries and they work fine.

edy:
One should do a bit of research before buying any product to see if it is repairable and how easy it will be and how much it will cost them. There are tons of YouTube videos showing gadget teardowns... You can get an idea of how tough it will be and what's inside, what tools you need, etc.

Chances are though that most people buying Airpods or any device in general are not looking that far into the future. Let's face it...  the average consumer already expects and knows their phone, earphones, laptop, tablet are probably going to last about as long as the software on it is able to run their latest games or YouTube videos, or keep the OS updated to take advantage of the latest features, and then they toss it.

I just made the mistake of trying to fix an aging iPod Classic. Someone gave me their old iPod Classic 30gb and I managed to get it charged and running long enough to install RockBox on it. It was functioning fine for maybe 5-10 minutes when plugged in, but would soon lose power faster than it could charge, and would turn off until charged again for a while. When unplugging it from power, it would power on for maybe 5 seconds and then turn off. So it was time to order a replacement battery from eBay for $15.

Big mistake... I should have tried to open up the damn iPod first before shelling out another $15 for a battery. I looked at all the online videos, checked 10 times and read all the precautions, used a special prying kit, etc... and I've opened up many items before. This one decided to be stubborn. Many of the plastic tabs on the front shell holding the back on ended up ripping off, despite careful prying. I guess it was just so old that the plastic started to dry up and became way too brittle to bend out of the way.

Then, once I managed to get in, I tried to remove the battery which was glued to the case. There is a tiny flat-flex behind the battery which I KNEW was there before-hand by seeing videos... and DESPITE THE FACT THAT THEY WARNED about damaging this flat-flex... guess what.... I ended up tearing it also.  |O  It is for the "hold" button, so you can live with out it, but still!!! It was running right under the freakin' glue that was holding down the battery!!!! WHY!!!

Anyways, at that point it still worked somewhat but then I noticed the stupid button (the iPod control wheel) in the middle had slipped out from it's spot and was loose and sliding out. So I had to remove the remaining board (which has the hard drive) from the other half of the case, and when I put it all back together the iPod refused to boot off the drive! It was complaining probably because the hard drive was damaged!

So anyways it turned into a disaster of epic proportions and now to try to salvage this mess I will have to order either another mini hard drive or one of those adapters (they have SD Card or Flash Drive adapter to fit the small hard drive flat-flex cable) and sink another $20-30 into it with the hopes it will work. Mind you, I will probably have to install iTunes and try to re-install all of that stuff on the drive as well to get it working again. I'm not sure I want to.

While this iPod classic *should* have been repairable, maybe 5 years ago it may have not been as brittle, I figure it a lost cause and now have spent $15 on a Li-Ion cell I can't do anything with. No big deal but lesson to be learned is open up the device FIRST before ordering a replacement battery.  :palm:

magic:

--- Quote from: CatalinaWOW on March 26, 2019, 03:44:44 pm ---It looks to me like protection from lawsuits over burning laptops.

--- End quote ---

--- Quote from: james_s on March 26, 2019, 04:49:47 pm ---If someone uses a cheap aftermarket battery in their Lenovo laptop and it burns their house down they don't go after the random Chinese seller they got the battery from, they blame Lenovo.

--- End quote ---
That's so utterly absurd I can't believe it even after having heard about that idiot who sued McDonald's for hot coffee being hot.
Any links?

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