Revived my Vision:M

[kishkizzle]

Not very interesting, just felt like expressing this among like-minded individuals...

A while back I had a 60GB black ZV:M. That died (my mistake, cheap accessory with bad pinout) and went in on extended warranty. I came back with a 60GB Zen Vision W but as you know that's not even half as portable in nature.

Eventually a friend with a 30GB black ZV:M had it brick up on him (no idea why, but it did it unprompted by misuse or anything like that). I was given the player, found myself able to bring it back to life, then posted about it on here so other people with bricked ones could try to make it work.

Can't remember why now but a good several months ago I opened the player and in the process broke the solder points on the battery connector. If you've seen that connector, you know how ridiculous it is to try to resolder that onto the mainboard...so I considered it a lost cause, and left the player on my shelf disassembled since then.

Tonight I got adventurous. Filed my soldering iron down a bit and went to work. Using the original solder I was able to get the socket to stick back in place (I don't dare use more solder...the points are so close together I'd likely short them). Couple of dabs of glue on each end of the connector for added strength and it's good to go.

Long story short, player is working again...yay for truly mobile audio

Love this player. Always loved the Vision:M. Even compared to technically superior products that have come since, I'd still prefer a ZV:M, and I know I'm not the only one who feels that way.

3 cheers for adventurous soldering!

[CrowdAds]

[Danneq]

That's nice! It always feel great when you bring a "dead" DAP back to life. I got 2 dead ZVM from Ebay last year and by combining the parts I managed to get one of them working and then I did a CF card mod on it. I like the ZVM very much as it is a solid player. It might not have the sound signature that I like the best among my players (the Kenwood Hd20GB7 wins despite being released in 2005), but it is very nice.

I like older DAP:s since they are easier to modify. Both my Creative players (Zen Touch as well as the ZVM) have had CF card mods.

I am looking to get new batteries for the Creative DAP:s as well as the iRiver and the Kenwood. All the older DAP:s I own have batteries that are replaceable without any soldering. So as long as they do not break in some other way, I can keep my 2 Creative DAP:s, my Sansa View, my iRiver H120 and my Kenwood HD20GA7 alive with new batteries. Only my new touchscreen Cowon S9 will die when the battery no longer can hold a charge.

Anyway, great that you got your ZVM working. I hope you will enjoy it for a long time!

[kishkizzle]

2005 sounds about right for the ZV:M as well.

I was expecting my solder job to be far more fragile, but in my rush out the mall doors earlier my headphone cord caught on the door handle, whipping the ZV:M out of my pocket into the hard floor at a high rate of speed. Scratched up the back shell, still works fine...I'm amazed the HDD isn't trashed.

I do think I'll be enjoying this one for a while...here I was thinking it was on its last legs!

One thing I love about the ZV:M is the form factor. A lot of people say "blah blah blah it's too big" but it fits my hand perfectly and has some substance to it, not like other players which are smaller and/or lighter.

[u8myfoood]

Wow same thing happened to me a while back, but I ended up losing the little plastic plug part =T

[kishkizzle]

Aw, sucks. I kinda doubt you can buy that connector anywhere.

You could try directly soldering to the motherboard but not the best idea.

Parts units on eBay aren't as common as they used to be, looks like just working players now which are a bit pricey for a 5 year old media player.

[B. Diddy]

I always marvel at you McGyver types who can do this stuff.

[Booga-Booga]

That's great! Most people come here and post "help me, ZVM broke..." or "ZVM Won't turn on what do i do?" so you never hear of any of the good stories about it!

Glad to see you got your player up and running again! =D

~Booga

[kishkizzle]

lol yeah, that tends to be the case.

If you view my past posts you'll see I tried to make an effort to show how I de-bricked this same unit way-back-when, however I put the actual info on another site and linked to it from here. Unfortunately that site is about as responsive as a block of wood so...perhaps Internet Archive time.

[B. Diddy]

I think those informational posts are a great service to the general community. Not long ago, I was able to upgrade the CPU of my cheap Acer laptop simply by following someone's step-by-step instructions they posted on Flickr, along with corresponding pictures. Kudos to you!

[copeys]

Congrats on the revive! !

I bought a ZVM motherboard yestie... should be here sometime next week. I am going to revive my ZVM!!! Yay.

[Psyklist]

Sometimes a regular soldering gun's tips are just too big to mess around with surface-mount technology (SMT) solder joints.

In the past, when I had to do some soldering on a SMT chip, I attached a needle to my (cold) soldering gun by placing the needle right against the side of the soldering gun tip and wrapping copper wire multiple times around both. This gave me a little point that heated up nicely. There may be enough solder on the old joint to make the fix and you won't have to add extra solder.

Also, I used a loupe to do the work.

[copeys]

Finally!!! It LIVES!!!

I am currently charging my ZVM through the computer, and am about to sync songs to it... it will finally be bought out of 2008, stuck with the music I had put on it and never have been able to replace!

[B. Diddy]

Congratulations--very impressive!

[kishkizzle]

Just a comment about the surface mount soldering advice given earlier - do not attempt to bend sewing needles with pliers. I don't know why but two I tried with shattered to bits instead of bending like you'd expect of a metal needle.

copeys...it's a good feeling, isn't it?

[copeys]

Originally Posted by kishkizzle

Just a comment about the surface mount soldering advice given earlier - do not attempt to bend sewing needles with pliers. I don't know why but two I tried with shattered to bits instead of bending like you'd expect of a metal needle.

copeys...it's a good feeling, isn't it?

Oh yeah. Can't wait!! Love the ZVM!

[kishkizzle]

GRAAAAAAAWRGH

Touchpad is screwed up. Not sure exactly what's up with it...it can still click and sometimes scroll up (regardless of actual finger scrolling direction), but not down at all. Will try disassembling and looking for dirt, etc...

If anyone has a broken parts unit and wouldn't miss their touchpad, I'd appreciate it. It's possible it could be a more complex issue elsewhere in the device but I'd hope it's isolated to just the touchpad.

[coachop94]

You can purchase just the touch pad. Check Ebay. Actually this seller http://cgi.ebay.com/Creative-ZEN-Vis...item53e0dd8952

[kishkizzle]

Thanks for the pointer. I'm currently watching a couple shipping-to-USA-only parts units, hopefully I can find someone on another board I'm active on to reship to me if they won't open up to shipping to Canada.

It looks like the parts units may end at lower cost than the touchpad assembly so it'd be nice to get a motherboard without the weakly-soldered-battery-connector out of it too. Plus the button pad (the black plastic front part) since the screw holes have stripped out of it on mine.

[coachop94]

I personally would just get a whole player for parts.

[Danneq]

I got my 2 broken ZVM from a US seller who shipped to Sweden (that I had to pay over US$20 in customs is another story...). I still have the second ZVM which I could not salvage. The LCD and HDD is broken, but I think the motherboard and touchpad works fine. If I were in Sweden now and the shipping from Sweden to Canada was not that expensive I would happily send it to you and you would only need to pay for the shipping. But alas I will live in Japan until the end of December.

You could keep looking at Ebay. Broken ZVM:s might shows up at any time.