Another shoulder button fix


larry

Member
Joined
Dec 11, 2010
Messages
117
My Pandora had two wonky shoulder buttons, now it has zero.


When the Pandora arrived, the right shoulder button was mushy. It was pressed all the way in; I could pull it out by hand a little, then press it in. If I pressed really hard it'd register. This was because the little foam pad inside had slipped down, and was no longer between the shoulder button and the actual button surface inside. Opening the case, repositioning the pad, and reassembling it was all it took to fix this.


The left shoulder button was a tougher nut to crack. It too was pressed all the way in, but I could't pull it out by hand. And repositioning the foam pad, or adding a second, didn't help. After disassembling it, and playing with it a lot, and staring at it and thinking, I became convinced it had a different problem.


Here's a picture posted by someone else (Cannibal?) that will help:
R-shoulder.jpg



First, some terminology: when I refer to the "shoulder button", I big that big chunky piece of plastic that says "R" on it in the above picture (but obviously said "L" on my left shoulder button). And when I refer to the "switch", I mean the actual electro-mechanical switch inside the unit, the thing that should be engaged/disengaged when you press on the "shoulder button". So!


See that little light-colored area on the underside of the shoulder button? That's a little ridge of plastic. It's what stops the shoulder button when it rotates away from the switch inside--the foam pad pushes that ridge up against the inside of the case. I concluded that, somehow, that ridge was meeting the case too soon--there wasn't enough "throw" to the shoulder button. In fact, I suspect there wasn't enough clearance for the switch to ever become un-pressed! So I scraped away just a tiny little bit of that ridge, so the shoulder button could move just a hair further away from the switch. And now my left shoulder button works great! I was surprised at how little I ultimately removed, and what a dramatic difference it made. So, if you try this on your Pandora: first, I'm not responsible for your actions, you do that on your own responsibility ;-) . Second, try scraping away just a tiny amount, then reassemble (don't bother screwing together, just fit the pieces back together) and see if the button is better.


Hope this helps somebody!
 
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