How not to fix an iPod shuffle
A friend of mine has an iPod shuffle … or should I say, DID. Mentioning no names, he decided to hunt out a site to see if he could fix it himself as it was out of warranty. He dived onto Google and found a site all about opening up his ipod.
He quickly checks to make sure his iPod is defiantly dead by plugging it into his laptop, looking back probably a bad move, mainly because he got straight into “fixing it” and didn’t let it discharge but we will never fully know 
.
Using a metal knife he started to ease the bottom of the case off… then with a kind of jabbing notion started to hack at it well then he must have hit a small capacitor and I found him running around the room swearing and screaming like a school girl wondering what to do. The iPod basically exploded in his face and caught fire, sparks flying and thick black smoke, and in the end he placed it on an electric fan, which in turn started to turn black from the smoke and heat coming out of the tiny little ipod…
I feel there are two morals of the story:
1) Apple made the iPod shuffle in a way for it not to be opened… there is a reason for this!
2) Project Managers should never think of themselves as “Hardware Engineers”.
The Dead iPod:
I believe he shorted out the battery with the knife, because the area where the iPod is melted is the size, shape, and location of the shuffle’s battery. If you short a battery, it will dissipate as much power as possible (electrical engineers know P = (V^2)/R, and if R -> 0, P -> infinity). This is the likely cause of the heat and consequent melting. The capacitors in the shuffle are tiny; they couldn’t possibly have stored enough energy to cause that (or any) heat damage. Just thought someone might want a more accurate opinion on what happened.
Hi. The iPod was shorted out by a cabal of Jewish engineers who perfected the science of invisibility and secretly control the entire universe including Burger King, but not McDonalds. They call to me hypersonically from the little holes in the electrical sockets telling me to produce movies about phony messiahs who didn’t really exist. The dead iPod is NOT an example of the Holocaust although their are millions of dead iPods which have been burried in mass graves in Croatia. Hi, sugartits.
I just wanted to comment that I had an iPod Shuffle completely die and it was non-responsive in 3 different computers, however, I plugged it into an iPod “USB Power Adapter” and it charged up and came alive again!
OMG.. today i was at my cousins house then after i wanyted to charge my ipod so then i put it in some usb thingy in the harddrive then 2 moinutes later i had to go home then i took out my ipod shuffle from the usb thingy then it was burning hot! and everything melt… er! if you have warranty do you need a reciept???
Can I have the USB part to fix my iPod Shuffle? I am fully competent.
Organisation specialising in web design and development with a particular focus on content management systems and creating effective web environments.
wtf if ur trying to carefuly open an ipod why would u stab it?!?
look like your ipod battery has born down. i am working in ipod maybe i can fix it.
this is stupid i still can;t found out how to fix my shuffle!!! the head phone socket is bust and i need to get in at the top!!!!
i would like to do this exact same thing to mine i think i might and post u some more pictures!! hahahaha
WTF is the guy a layman he doesnt even know how to describe the ipod circuitry “For a USB plug it has a remarkable amount of stuff on it.” he shud go to a technical school first
James the wonderhubby (and electronics technician/engineer) says it was likely the battery that he hit. Nasty though. I’ll keep my daughter’s knives and her iPod from playing together.
did ur freind got hurt , did she burn her face something like that
He must have shorted something with his knife, the only way to discharge it would be to leave it on and let it run, but having said that apple didn’t make it to be opened.. it wont be a capacitor, i dont know any capacitor that can fit inside an ipod that can blow can cause enough heat to melt the case like that. however when he pluged into the laptop on a shorted shuffle, lucky it was only the ipod that was on fire. I hope nothing got in his eyes
That’s funny the guy must be embarrassed
T____T how sad!!!
Awesome! Very funny.
this is fake and no one should believe it…….. BS
This is so fake……..dont believe it…………….. BS
was his ipod on whn he did this?
capacitor do not burst into flames they may spark if shorted out. Electrolytic capacitors can explode but all they do is spray a toothpaste like substance every where. I have a hard time believing that the sparks caused by any cap in an iPod could cause something to catch fire.
this is BS
i have one ipod of apple and my ipod is no work porperly so please tell me that at which he service station is there in gujarat in india ok
i’m already crying. what a waste of “good” hardware.
oh no!! got mine fixed from a company i googled.. i think it was called http://www.ipodsfixed4u.com – give them a try!