Fuze Battery Non-Replacable?

very . . .carefully . . hmm its been a while. I don’t quite remmeber, but you should be able to carefully pry it open with some tools. best place to start the prying is between the headphone port and data connection.

The Fuze battery is not offered for sale, its internally wired and soldered to the PCB without a connector.  This is what non-replaceble means.

The batteries that are for sale are replaceable for E200 and C200 series.  If you are tech savvy of course you can do just about anything you want, including prying things open and soldering wires,  etc.

Honestly, concerning the whole “you’ll probably want something else in 3-4 yrs.” well… honestly no lol. The Fuze has literally everything i could ever want with a music player and more. Firmware updates and techs like Rockbox should keep me with this player for years, if i could work with the battery boundary, im set forever potentially with this player lol. I’ve had a particular minidisc player for about 9yrs, its just how i am lol. I dont want to look for another player, i dont even want to care for another one. I want to keep my Fuze and be satisfied with that. But im thinking the battery issue isn’t as terrible as i think it is. Im sure with the right engineering, it can be replaced pronto ;). I have the pic of the Fuze’s internals, but can anyone point out where the hell the battery is lol? Thanks.

The battery is the white thing in picture  #19 with the 3 lead wires going to the system logic board.  If you can find a defective player on ebay or somewhere, say one with a broken screen or headphone jack, it shouldn’t be too hard to swap the battery out of the defective unit with this one, just by splicing into the wiring.  The hardest part would be taking the player apart and putting it back together without breaking any of the little plastic snaps that hold it together.

A lot of players don’t implicitly have replaceable batteries, but they can be taken apart and put back together relatively easily and the battery just connects via a small connector (not solder). As non-replaceable batteries go, the Fuze is the most non-user-replaceable I’ve seen. Given the dissasembly pictures & descriptions, I’d be surprised if we ever see replacement batteries.

But I was recently corrected that these are Lithium Polymer batteries (not Lithium Ion), so they should enjoy a lifespan of several years. 

Message Edited by bdb on 06-05-2008 01:29 PM

Correct it is LiPolymer battery.

Has anyone tried replacing with a generic battery? It’s unfortunate they’ve chosen to solder it onto the board and not use a connector.

Odds are pretty good that if the battery isn’t designed to last more than a couple of years, the rest of it isn’t either.  Probably by the time it doesn’t hold a charge, the thumbwheel will be falling off, or the power switch won’t work, or the headphone jack will be crackling, etc.,etc… Really sad isn’t it…

The Fuze battery is rated for 24 hours.  Li-Ion Polymer batteries typically lose 20% charge per year after manufacture, even if they have NEVER been used.  Thus after 4 years, the Fuze will still be able to run approx 4.8 hours.

As far as expensive goes, I’m not sure what does expensive mean, whereas the most expensive fuze is less than $129.00.

I made the mistake and purchased a spare battery for my E200R, and it is degrading as it sits in the drawer.   So unless BRAND NEW batteries are available 4 years after the date of manufacture, user replaceable means nothing.

MP3 players have increasingly become a “fashion statement” and it is the consumer that is driving the demand for non-user replaceable batteries.  User replaceable batteries take up significantly more “bulk” than the non-replaceable Li-ION poly batteries being made for the fuze and the Nano’s.

Now, If I spent $500 for an I-Pod touch (32 GB) or I-Phone, I would want the ability to replace the battery.  But I am sure in 4 years, there will be a better unit than the Fuze, and quite frankly at $30 a year, that results in the product only costing me $2.50 a month. 

In the electronics realm anything in the sub 200 dollar price range rarely has over a 5 year life expectancy.

I have an 8 year-old cell phone with an original Li-Ion battery that is about the same size as the battery in my e280 and it is still going strong! This phone gets use every day, much more than I would think an mp3 player gets.

I believe your estimates on the life expectancy of these little guys are too critical. The Li-Poly batteries in the “disposable” units (FUZE & CLIP) are designed to last longer than the Li-Ion ones. You could be looking at 8 - 10 years before they “bite the dust!”

Boy that must be some good phone.  I and my family have been through 6 cell phones over the last 8 years or so.  All of them had li-ion batteries and none of the batteries ever made it much past 2 years.  We’ve had Motorola, Nokia, Keoceria, and LG phones.  My spouse’s got very heavy use while mine hardly got any.  Her battery would usually give out in a little under 2 years and mine generally would last just a bit longer than that.  My current LG phone has a 1100 mAh Li-on battery which is about as thick as the fuze and about half as big.  I’ve had it about 21 months and it’s capacity is dropping pretty rapidly.  I’m pretty sure in 5 or 6 months I’m going to be buying a new battery…right on schedule… I’d like to know what kind you’ve got because I guess that’s the one to get.

Message Edited by fzone46 on 09-08-2008 07:59 PM

Message Edited by fzone46 on 09-08-2008 08:17 PM

Sorry,

I don’t think this person is over reacting.  I bought my Fuze on Black Friday last year.  I didn’t start using it until March of this year.  For some strange reason a few days ago; it wouldn’t charge up completely and after using it this morning for 35 minutes the battery died.  I don’t know what to do.  It’s a great gadget!  I would hate to chunk it.  Any ideas.

THe nice thing about Li polymer batteries is they can be custom sized to fit the maximum juice in the space the mfr has available.  The bad part is that often means the mfr is the only source for those batteries, and if they have declared them unreplaceable they likely won’t sell you one.

I usually see cell phone and laptop batteries go pretty limp after a couple of years.  Lucky for me I guess my cell has broken a few times and the warrantee replacements have always come with a new battery.  My daughter’s phone (same brand & battery, different model) has held up well, but was pretty much useless off the charger after 2 years.  New battery perked it right up.

My Neuros player (not a polymer battery) is around 7 years old and down to about 15% of the original play time.  Luckily, it’s a standard lithium battery, replaceable at about $10. Not a priority so far as I usually use it on a lighter adapter.

Hi Sansa Man, I think Sansa Fuze with internal memory is a great deal, there might be some glitch on the device that you may try to troubleshoot and try to update the firmware, it is the same thing with replaceable battery and I think it depends on the usage and overcharging the device, and you dont have to throw it away if after some months it stop totally charging because it will still fall in SanDisk ONE YEAR warranty and SanDisk is generous enough to replace it but avoid physicall damaged because it voids the waarranty.

Thanks. :wink: 

My Rio Karma is 5 or 6 years old and STILL hold a charge of more then 10 hours.

These batteries last a LONG time.

Hey - When the battery quits you can:

  1. Hook it to your home stereo with a wall charger

  2. hook it to your computer and use the SD storage space for your ‘secret’ files

  3. use it as a ‘smart’ paper weight

  4. see how many times it will skip across a pond

For all of you that think the fuze battery lasts for a long time, well I would like to straighten this out. 5 months of ownership, used everyday and recharged everyday, battery will no longer take a charge. This is outrageous. What a waste. So I suppose this is now ready for the trash. I certainly feel cheated and will go the Ipod route, more money, but I guess you get what you pay for.

@robertico wrote:
 I certainly feel cheated and will go the Ipod route, more money, but I guess you get what you pay for.

 

I don’t know that the battery will last any longer in an Ipod.  They may even use the same brand battery.

If your Fuze is only 5 months old and bought retail, it should still  be under warrantee, so Sansa will replace it.

If it’s from one of the overstock places, then figure up to a couple of years of the battery’s shelf life was used before you got it.  In return for that you paid a low price.

 

The player has a one year manufacturer’s warranty. Call Sandisk, get an RMA, then send them the player for replacement.

Mine is less than 2 years old and did not give any warning when it quit holding a charge.  over 800 songs lost with no chance of saving them i guess, wow