iPod Mini alive again!

Last year sometime in November we got lightning strike at home, just when my daughter sat in front of her (and our family) PC..She told me blue light appears accross the main board. The PC is dead, so does the cable modem, the printer and my daughters iPod Nano..sigh..but thank God she is OK.

The Nano got so hot she put it in the freezer!.I wasn't at home. Alas it was over then with it. So with no budget after buying new motherboard-second hand-Phenom X4-cable modem, her dead iPod mini is my target operation. Thought that only the battery needs replacement.

Spend a half afternoon to read how to open the thing-and finally have luck to change the battery after admiring the Wolfson DAC-Phillips chips-no wonder people like the sound of this 1st gen mini. Apple just wants only  the best for their products that time. But the display shows discouraging message..a frowning face appears then followed by an URL..bah..., must be the mini drive that gives up..so did I..throw a towel.

But with luck and persistence of a DIYer-I found this link..of the late Mark Hoekstra, who back then in 2007 have already done it!..replacing the venerable minidrive with 4GB compact flash memory card. A couple month later and it's just yesterday I found a 4GB Transcend CF card that known to be working well with iPod. I've spent a couple of hours and yes..it works, here are the pics. Veel dank Mark..you've leave us wonderful knowledge..

The mini drive-new batt-and  CF card

This thing makes the old iPod mini to a cult status..(Wolfson 8711 DAC) and yes there are people out there tweaking this little guy !

after restoring with iTunes....

With backlit ON & the busted Nano..Apple proprietary chip in there and a korean memory chip..:(

This morning I've made my daughter happy, also my son who got new iPod shuffle for his birthday to day..not to mention my wife who otherwise will spent more money!..So, please throw away then your iPod 1st gen...to me :).

Sony CDP950 hardware mod-wooden transport

After modding this Sony CDP950 heavily, these are the results.
Electronic wise, well never ending tweak that is :). Found during a recent blind test with a poor result ha ha..It turns out that the R value for current to voltage is very important, and you need really second-third even fifth opinion to judge the sound when you're constantly modding and didn't know anymore of 'correct' sound. So it was my take for another lesson.

Hardware wise I consider it finished..yihaaa!. Acrylic plates does wonder and also a quite difficult task in taking care of the old transport. It's all wood now :)..not the famous Phillips VAM or something like that , I dubbed it Sony WAM :), short for Wood Augmented Mechanism..just kidding :). here is the tranny cover

The 'new' Sony CDP950 'Lampized'..thanks again for your mail Mr. Fikus..
A broken beam of my workshop roof, or a part of it :) & a design drawing
Made some noises..
Fitting & mating plastic, wood & the CD player..

Adding a nice old teak top layer
underside of the 'WAM'..
Nice gold plated springs..(guess where the h**** I've got it..)
Fits well..
fastened & adding brackets..
Well..more pictures this time. As February was a really busy times. Also recently this CDP yet again showing another sickness. The CD just turns very fast counter clock wise. After cannibalizing my 'spare' Pioneer LD player for few chips, particularly the spindle motor driver chip. this old guy just runs well again. Now back to that never ending tweak again...thanks.