The background: a few years ago, I purchased an inexpensive media player, an Eclipse. Nice feature set for the price, and reasonable memory capacity. I loaded it up with "driving music" and kept it in my car for the most part. And for a year or so, all was mostly well. But usability issues were present from the start. The player will not operate if the battery is too low, as one would expect. But when you plug the device into a charger, it has to charge FULLY before it will let you operate it in any way. This can take a couple hours. I want to emphasize that it cannot be charged and operated at the same time. This wasn't too big an issue, though, when the battery was relatively young.
The problem: the battery has cratered. It's non-replaceable (although I could solder in a new one if I had to and could find one). It has responded briefly to reconditioning, but that in itself is an irritatingly long process, and the results last only a few days. I've basically given up on the battery at this point.
The project: to bypass the battery altogether, so that when plugged into a USB port, the player thinks it's fully charged and ready to go. The battery has three leads, two of which are obviously the power (+V / GND) connections and one of which, I presume, is the voltage-level sensor. If I can get the battery charged one last time, some quick probing with a voltmeter ought to straighten out which is which.
The theory: that by supplying a steady +5V to the power and sense lines, I can trick the Eclipse into assuming it's got a fully-charged battery. This should be a very easy fix, just rerouting the wires to pins on the MP3 socket.
The question: is this theory sound? I'm assuming the battery is a five-volt, and that it's charged by simply running power through it in reverse. Are my assumptions reasonable?
The problem: the battery has cratered. It's non-replaceable (although I could solder in a new one if I had to and could find one). It has responded briefly to reconditioning, but that in itself is an irritatingly long process, and the results last only a few days. I've basically given up on the battery at this point.
The project: to bypass the battery altogether, so that when plugged into a USB port, the player thinks it's fully charged and ready to go. The battery has three leads, two of which are obviously the power (+V / GND) connections and one of which, I presume, is the voltage-level sensor. If I can get the battery charged one last time, some quick probing with a voltmeter ought to straighten out which is which.
The theory: that by supplying a steady +5V to the power and sense lines, I can trick the Eclipse into assuming it's got a fully-charged battery. This should be a very easy fix, just rerouting the wires to pins on the MP3 socket.
The question: is this theory sound? I'm assuming the battery is a five-volt, and that it's charged by simply running power through it in reverse. Are my assumptions reasonable?