That $15 hex-shaped cylinder waterproof MP3...

That $15 hex-shaped cylinder waterproof MP3 player (and eBook reader!) is a bargain. It doesn't seem to have a name besides "Waterpoof MP3 Player", made in China." cVEU-L15 might be the model number or serial number. It worked great as an 8 GB usb stick, but it would never power on to play music. So I dug into the guts... 1. Unscrew the cap with the headset jack. 2. Remove the plastic inserts 3. Pull the battery free from it's glued position atop a large microchip At this point I measured 0 V at the battery, with and without the 5V USB charger supplying power to the headphone jack. 4. Unwrap the mylar tape from the battery terminals 5. Unfold the battery terminal circuit board from the battery This unfolded a bit of aluminum foil causing the battery to short itself. Now I measured 2V at the battery and 5 V at the power supply from the USB. Unfortunately, I brushed the + and - probes into each other during this measurement and sparked the small chip (diode?) near the incoming 5V. So I'll never be able to charge again. But at least I can see if the rest of the thing works by plugging in a new 3.6 V battery pack (3 AAA NiMH ?). View or comment on Hobson Lane's post »