Sansa surgery

O.K. so I received 8 Sandisk Sansa mp3 players about a month ago in a 'bag of crap' from woot.com during a woot off. 4 2GB, 3 4GB and 1 8GB models. Out of the 8, 3 of them didn't work. And the one I wanted to use, the 8GB model had a crack in the screen. Everything else on it worked, but with no screen it was completely useless.

I decided, what the heck, let's take it apart. 4 screws undone and I was in. Not much there, just a way to replace the battery. But there were 4 smaller screws that looked like they would allow me to get into the guts of it. After poking around I found the 2 microchips that held the brains of the player. Luckily they together on a circuit board and it just snapped into the main circuit board.

After removing the memory I then dissected a broken 2GB model and swapped the memory chips. Put it all together and turned it on. No luck, the display say the keys were locked and I couldn't get it to turn on. After making sure the lock button was in the unlocked position I determined that there was a problem with the switch for the lock feature.

Stripped the memory out of that 2GB player and then got a different one. Took it apart, put the 8GB chips in it, put it back together and turned it on. Well, I'm happy to say, I now have a functioning 8GB mp3 player. As a bonus I now also have 2 extra batteries for when this battery runs out. I'm going to load some of my favorite music on it (Bob Wills, Lefty Frizzel, just a lot off old country and swing music). I'll be able to carry this in my pocket so it will be nice to have.

This will also allow me to not have to use my iPhone to play my music so that should make the battery life on the iPhone last longer. Playing music on the iPhone really drains the battery. And as a bonus the Sansa has F.M. radio and stores photos too.

All in all, a nice bit of surgery on some cheap mp3 players.