Squashed wifi antenna; volume wheel solder check

[peelie]

Hi


I seem to have a low volume problem where when using headphones sound seems not to be in stereo unless volume wheel is set relatively high, so decided to check the solder on the volume wheel since ED reported that some solders on the volume wheel were poor. Whilst doing that noticed that part of the wifi antenna was deformed. So I have two questions:


1. Here is a picture of my wifi antenna inside the Pandora, and it is deformed a bit (maybe by case? or heat from board?) so would this affect antenna efficiency?





2. and here is pic of my volume wheel solder, do those solders look okay?





cheers for any input in advance

 

[drock]

not an rf engineer here, but as long as the insulation is still doing its job you are probably in the clear. If any type of impedance change has happened though, you could have issues with the antenna not working as intended. I have seen wifi cables get pretty beat up and work fine. Do you have wifi issues at all?


The solder joints look ok. It is possible there is a bad joint though. If you do try to re-solder just be careful you don't melt the wheel. Have you always had low volume or is it new?

 

[Hoodoo]

Hm. Just in case, the 3.5 jack is pretty tight, are you sure you properly insert the headphones? Had such an 'issue' with both my apple headphones and sennheiser.

 

[milkshake]

Apple headphones that come from iPhones dont work correctly due to how they present the mix in the jack which is different to how mic input would normally work so it messes with the sound part.

 

[peelie]

sorry not described my sound issue very well.


what it is that i can't seem to get 'stereo' effect at +very low+ volumes, sound prefers to come out on one channel. some games for example 'forget me not' seem to have high volume so when playing with headphones would like to listen at very low volume but then the stereo image is not there.


regarding wifi i dont seem to have any noticeable wifi issues but concerned as to how that part of the antenna got squashed like that?


cheers

 

[DaMummy]

try any other headphones? pretty much any set that has one 3.5mm plug for audio and mic will present problems. and do also make sure you really plug the thing in all the way. new devices need some force to get it in first couple times

 

[EvilDragon]

AFAIK the sound coming from the speakers is the same that goes to the headphone jack.


If the speakers work fine with Stereo, then the headphones should as well.


Do the speakers work properly?

 

[peelie]

the sound issue seems to have lessened somewhat, maybe it was more to do with my perception?! but also the noise/static that resulted when turning the volume wheel to very low setting seems to have lessened also.


listening very carefully the stereo image does seem to be there at very low volumes using headphones; impossible to detect any sound listening to pandora speaker at that volume.


any ideas on how the wifi cable got squashed?


cheers

 

[Tensuke]

This isn't related to the Pandora, but I had a similar issue with my phone, a MyTouch 4G Slide. I read that it had TV-out capabilities and worked with a 3.5mm Zune AV cord, so I tried it with my N900's AV cable. It didn't work, but it did play static through the phone whenever I touched the TV--which I assumed wasn't good, so I unplugged it. Later, I tried the headphones that came with the N900, which are the kind with a microphone on the same cord. The sound was staticy and it only played one track of audio loudly, the other was barely audible at all. I thought I had messed it up somehow with the AV cable. But after reading this thread I tried the headphones again, but held down the microphone button, and the sound worked fine! Only when holding down the button, but, I'm glad to know I didn't mess it up. I tried regular headphones and they worked just fine. I'm a very happy camper now!


But regarding your wifi issue, I'd say it happened somewhere along the manufacturing line, it doesn't look like something the case would do unless there's a part of the case that sticks out at that exact spot. My advice would be not to worry if it works fine, if it stops at some point, you may need to RMA.

 

[Lobo]

My Pandora has the same problem: I have to turn the volume wheel up and/or tap it to get stereo sound. Get static kind of noise while tinkering with the wheel.


Normal heafphones btw, I already know the effects of Apple branded ones.