Ipod Shuffle 2nd Generation & The Ridicoulus Dock Price

Friend of mine call me, said , his ipod shuffle 2G dock charger has broken. I checked on apple.com and found the dock. OMG!! It cost S$55 (check it here), quiet cheap, Yes, quiet cheat the deep pocket. But which deep pocket bought an ipod shuffle? Which idiot buy this thing if the whole packet itself sold for just S$78 (here)? Sometimes i wonder what makes the fanbois (I love Apple but fortunately my flat pocket has save my mind) so crazy about Apple? design? prestige? or Santo Steve Jobs? Dunno.


This is the ipod shuffle and the mesh dock look like.What makes the dock so expensive? And i look at the circuit and it just has passive components resistors, capacitors & and an inductor for filtering. Not an essential function. I asked Mr Google and found someone has done it before just bypass this most expensive filter and it works fine.



I started to find the jack in the most variety electronics store RS Components and found nothing move to Farnell Singapore and found it here for just S$1.40 (US$1.00). Someone went there and he able grab one for me.
After the jack on my hand I work with a friend (tribute to Bahru). First we didn't want to throw the filter circuit PCB, but it makes the cable, dock, and jack looks so mesh. And I plug it to computer. My Ubuntu didn't recognise it, plug into Windows machine also same result.
Then we decided to bypass it. Some has done it before and works. After some work with cable I try it again, some times it detects sometime doesn't. I suspect may be bad connection between jack and the connector. Maybe the jack is very little smaller compare to original dock. So the iPod must be put on the surgery table. We have to something with connector. Oohh, that's not easy. I must admit Apple have very brilliant engineer. Gorgeous outside, sophisticate engineering & leading edge manufacturing process. I already sacrifice my iPod Nano 1stG, when try to dry it. The LCD is broken but it still live with long last battery till today.



Thanks to Bahru, this iPod disassembly safely. And after little work on connector, I plug it to computer, and the orange LED blinking. If Xbox 360 owner see RROD (red ring of death) they must be in coma, I'm happy to see OROL (orange ring of life :) ). It's alive, although the manual said it should be continuous orange light when charging not blinking. When i hook it to Windows it has continuous as in manual. I guess itYeah, yeah if it asked to Apple, their answer must be "It designed only for Mac & Win" Sigh... .. Also it doesn't work with USB charger, i guess it because I removed the filter circuit.

Orange Ring Of Life :)

If you have same problem with the Ipod dock, hopefully this article help you. Many owner complain about the dock design and of course the dock price that almost 71% of the complete set. If you want to use the original dock i draw this schematic but sorry no value.

iPod Shuffle 2G Dock Schematic

1 US$ 3.5mm 4pin Jack