RIP, my Precious...

[kishkizzle]

After a long life, my Vision:M is toast.

A long while ago, I had to replace the vertical scroll pad. While I was working on it then, I broke the battery connector off of the motherboard. Being surface mount and my soldering skills being less than perfect, I got a weak electrical contact and physically secured the connector with hot glue.

Over the last week, the poor thing took some heavy falls. While the hard drive came unseated each time and I managed to reconnect it, restoring functions, each time...the last fall broke the electrical contact.

Now, having a fancy new temp-adjustable soldering station with a super fine point on my iron and stronger skills than I had before, I went in trying to fix it correctly. Unfortunately my iron lifted the pad and trace going to the middle contact (white wire on the battery pack) so unless there is some component on the other side I can tap onto, a new motherboard is needed...it will still run when hooked up to the charger so the board is otherwise OK...

Anyone happen to know where that white wire goes?

Alternatively, anyone have a ZVM around they want to part with/part out cheaply? eBay is a little pricey currently. It seems the days of $10 for-parts ZVMs are long gone. Since I have two good hard drives, a good screen, good button pad, good scroll pad, good battery and good case I can't justify the cost of buying a whole working one, which currently varies from 90 to 200 USD depending on exact condition and colour.

(the worst part of this truly is that it's entirely my fault )

[CrowdAds]

[kishkizzle]

...persistence, and a little eBay magic, pays off.



Sure, it's now comprised of three donor units, but that's good enough to say it's still 6-7 years old in my book.
'Original' parts include battery, hard drive and the inside frame everything screws onto.

[Mikkun]

It's just too bad that there is no iVue front panel for this player. *sighs*

[kishkizzle]

Interesting idea. It would have to be two pieces, of course.

The green/black combo idea came to me while I was piecing it together. The screw holes are stripped out of my black button pad anyway and the green screen bezel is scratched while the black one is almost flawless, so it worked out for the best.

[Mikkun]

I don't think an iVue front panel for this player is possible, as it is so outdated and pretty much unpopular, what with the iPod Crowd hogging all the market and aftermarket parts and what have you. We can still dream, though.

Glad you got your player back in working order. If I may suggest, you can protect your player with a variety of tough skins made of silicone or use a crystal case. or get those pouches made of leather so when you drop it next time, it won't spell disaster for you and your ZVM.

also, try to be patient as there are sellers on eBay that sells the full shell of the ZVM, buttons and all, so you can put your player back to one color tone eventually.

[kishkizzle]

Agreed about aftermarket parts.

However, I have no plans to 'fix' it being green/black...it's now the best looking ZVM as far as I'm concerned

No case could have prevented this failure. 100% my fault for breaking off the battery connector to begin with.

[Mikkun]

Well, be careful next time, it's a great player and it'll be sad if you render it useless again.

As for me, I'm going to go for a non-volatile memory solution and upgrade my ZVM to either Compact Flash or SSD. Hard drives tend to break down after a few years and I want to keep my ZVM as my main Media Player for a long time.

[kishkizzle]

Yes, solid state is definitely the way to go. I, however, have two spare working hard drives now so I'm set for the better part of the foreseeable future, certainly well beyond the lifespan of either of my working battery packs...lol.

Definitely being more careful. I love the thing dearly