Posted by mike on 11/01/06 00:07

el_steak wrote:
> My girlfriend has a Sandisk Digital Audio Player (SDMX1-512)
> (http://tinyurl.com/7w9jq)
>
> It went dead a few weeks ago. It would simply not power up, even when
> using a fresh new battery. She would press the power button and nothing
> would happen (no, the "HOLD" was not on;)
>
> I opened it up to see if there wasn't anything obvious broken inside
> but everything seemed to be fine ... except for the presence of a tiny
> button-cell battery (the type you have in your watch) soldered to the
> PCB board.
>
> I checked the voltage of the tiny battery and sure enough it was near
> dead (0.4 volt). I hooked up a regular 1.5volts battery to the (+) and
> (-) of the button cell and bingo, the player came back to life.
>
> After seeing that, I simply soldered 2 pieces of wire from the (+) and
> (-) of the dead battery to the (+) and (-) of the main battery
> terminals. The player works fine now.
>
> I'm really puzzled as to what is the purpose of this battery. Is it
> used for anything important in the player or is it just built to make
> sure that once the battery is dead, you have to buy a new player?
>
Sometimes the battery-looking thing is a capacitor.

If it IS a battery, you shouldn't connect it directly to the other
battery. I doubt it would explode, although that's a possibility.
More likely it will leak corrosive goo all over your player. Then
you'll have a second chance to throw it in the dumpster.
mike

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