H120 charging problem!

[f_coco]

My rockboxed H120 just got a charging problem! When i plug in the charger, the battery level indicator raise to 100% quickly. And after i plug off the charger when the charging light went out, the indicator drop from 100% quickly and after a while it raise up again but did not reach 100%. Before this strange thing happened, the charging light was blinking the last time i charged my H120. Anyone knows where is the problem? Is this problem with the battery or with the charging circuit THX in advance!

[CrowdAds]

[audiomodder]

lol, you probably threw out your player by now, but for future visitors the problem with that is the capacitors inside the player. They have leaked over the years and need to be replaced. There used to be a guide on the old mysticriver site but it's gone now I believe.

[jumbuck]

Just to add a tad of info...
A blinking charging light also happens if the player is charged without a battery or if a battery has a open circuit. So if the wrong charger hasn't been used then it'd be well worth while trying a new battery.

Audiomodder, heres a link to Internet Archives capture of the Repair of fried players thread from misticriver with the capacitors specs in case you want it :-). http://web.archive.org/web/201005241...-possible.html

[audiomodder]

Thanks jumbuck!

That backup link is cool...looks like it doesn't save pics though, but at least the most important info is there

Also, I believe the charging circuit inside is a BQ24010 from TI. I wrote up some interesting stuff about it on my webpage here

Just scroll to the bottom and look at the bluetooth hacking section. Jumbuck makes a good point though too- those batteries usually break down after this many years (if it is the original).

-Audiomodder

[audiomodder]

also just an added note, you can make your H120/140 charge over USB with an easy mod. Just put a diode between the charge + and USB + with anode side on the charge input. That will keep it from sending voltage to the USB port in case you connect both at the same time for some reason. It also drops the voltage (.3 to .7 depending on the diode) in case you have a USB port that is a little bit high (since the H140 does have those sensitive caps). However, the official charger is ~5.6v which is already a little high so not much to worry there. Been doing this for a while and it works great, doesn't overload the USB port or anything. I think this wasn't in the original design because computers (laptops especially) limited the current on USB back in 2003 much more than today. So they played it safe.