digital collection

So, I decided to take it upon myself to fix my Sansa Clip. I like working in constraints , but I have a job and its easier to go out and buy something (taking probably an hour or so) versus just sitting down taking whatever the thing is apart and trying to fix it myself. So being constrained by money was lost to me and versus doing the natural thing I would usually do, take it apart and rebuild it, I went out and bought a new Sansa Clip. But, I decided that it would be worthwhile and more educational to take the Clip apart and analyze the design and comment on its innards. Working in constraints is  good practice.

Tools to break in there.

The sugery:

I used an Xacto Knife, Tape, and a Strip of paper. Start from the top of the clip (near the USB insert and Headphone Jack) and work your way to the bottom. My X-acto is sharp so the blade of the knife would cut into the plastic. I would advise using a flat head screw driver unless you don’t mind your clip have a ruff degraded top edge.

Clip Anatomy:

The Clip is held apart by two clips about 2/3 down the way of  the Selector circles. I was impressed by Sansa’s design team for making this bolt less design. This design saves time and money in the production process. Also when people like me go and tinker around we don’t have to go to the store to find the world’s smallest philips head. When reattaching the clip together make sure these clips snap back in place. I found that the power clip kept falling off, I simply taped it into place and when I got the two ends on a place I felt comfortable with I removed the tape.

Clip Innards and the Problem Circled

Now if your Clip’s problem was like my Clip’s problem, your headphone jack only works when wiggled at a certain angle, it probably means a part of the headphone jack chip has lost contact with another part of the chip. You can either solder these two points together again at this point or find some way to keep this connection between the two points. Be sure to plug in your headphones so you can hear and observe what happens when you have sound. I found that a corner piece had lost contact, but your problem could be different. I basically measured the headphone jack and found it to be 1/2 of an inch wide. Then I rolled out about 2 inches of paper, mitered it (cutting into it very lightly with the x-acto to get very precise folds) every 1/2 inch and stuck it on stop of the headphone jack. Therefore, when I put the beveled back of the Clip back on, the paper would have pressure exerted on it from the back pressing these two pieces together again. Becareful though, if you cut your paper too big the Clip may not close.

Suggestion Spot

Now if Sandisk and the Sansa design team wanted to fix this problem they could add a rectangle of plastic above the headphone jack to ensure that the headphone jack will not wiggle as much and the life time of the product would be longer. But then the question becomes ethical, as a maker of this small MP3 player and because it is priced so cheaply (I got mine for 20 dollars) they may design with the ability for the clip to NEED to be replaced every year or two. This way the clip becomes a virtual subscription of mechanics. I think this is ethically wrong in the sense that my clip may end up being thrown away and never reused. So if my clip was reused or if I could mail my Clip back to Sansa and they could give me some kind of Manufacturer Coupon or something similar I would buy more into the subscription model their design creates. But also I am not sure how the Sansa design team tested the clip. I have had my clip for about a year now and it still works flawlessly minus the mechanical failure.

I want to analyze the design of the volume jack and the power jack. The volume jack as a functional entity is pressed on the top or bottom to increase or decrease volume, and the power jack as a functional entity slides up and down to turn the clip on, off, and put the Clip in the “Hold” mode. The power jack has a little connection to the “Hold on” to the slider, and the volume jack has a molded out of a flat shape design, so that the volume jack “hangs on” to the cover of the clip. I also liked how the volume jack was 1.5 times larger than the power jack.  I am still trying to figure out why Sansa chose the design they did for the volume jack. It is smart, as on the back of the volume jack it has two plus signs to make contact with the increase volume or decrease volume. For the Clip+ the Sansa design team has reduced the size of  volume jack to about an inch and has reduced the power jack to a small circle and instead of the power jack being across from the volume jack it is now more diagonal.  If I were to design the clip I would get rid of the power button all together, and use the main selector circle as the power button, put the headphone jack on top and increase the size of the volume jack (the Clip’s volume jack is currently on the left side of the player, meaning left handers like me will have to use our thumbs to change the volume of the clip.) I think to fix this function would need to “unify” the design and put the volume jack on top or on the front of the player so that it becomes the same using it from either direction.

That’s all for now.

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I had a Sansa Clip for about a year before the headphone jack went rotten. The jack would short out alot, and as a result only the left side of my headphones would work after jiggling and prodding. I had bought the clip last summer for working out in the gym and it had proved to be a great product. It is a small simple device.

Sansa updated the Clip 1.0 to the Clip+. I was curious as to why? Alot of companies these days tend to fix products that aren’t broken, think of Apple and their relentless amount of Iphones and marginally changed products they release. Imagine how wasteful this is… So I was surprised to see Sansa had updated their product. I went to Radioshack last week to replace my Clip 1.0 with a Clip+. This week my Clip+ is experiencing the same exact problem I had with Clip 1.0, except this time its after a week’s worth of use.

I think the design flaw in the Clip comes from the orthogonality (90 degree angle) of the headphone jack with the rest of the unit.

Now, when I put the clip in my pocket I have to ensure that the headphone jack points up, which means that the the clip has to sit oddly and unintuitively in my pocket because it has to be placed in my pocket at a 90 degree angle of its intentioned use. By intentioned use the way it was designed to be used. Oddly enough there is an actual clip on the back of the clip that is orthogonal to the jack as a well. I have to place the Clip 90 degrees because I don’t want to cause additional stress of the headphone jack, if my pockets are like this:

this orientation will cause the least amount of stress on the wire coming out of the headphone jack.

Versus this orientation: I think this orientation will eventually cause a short in the headphone jack because of the amount of tugging from the headphone wire.

The better design for the Clip would be to stream line the orientation of the device. Right now we have this back clip:
Which is also orthogonal to the headphone jack. If the headphone jack were place on top of the clip like here:

Would be more align with the functional aspects of the player:

I looked at the Apple’s IPod and it follows that idea of following the function of the design. As the headphone jack is placed on the top of the device. I wonder if Sansa tried to differentiate itself by putting the jack on the side?

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