squeezeboxes "disentegrating"

[Dylanc421]

I have 3 squeezebox radios and the plastic around the power port/ethernet adapter is completely disintegrating. It is crumbling into little pieces, some falling out of the radio and some falling in to the innards.
I have a battery backup in one of the radios but there is no battery in the other two. They work fine, but I have never seen this happen on any other piece of electrical equipment.
Just curious if anyone else has experienced this and if youhave you tried to glue/tape something in place?
Thanks.

[agbagb]

Just had a look at mine (4 in total!) and I'm not seeing that....... My radios must be 10 years old, at the very least.

[mooblie]

I have 3 squeezebox radios and the plastic around the power port/ethernet adapter is completely disintegrating. It is crumbling into little pieces, some falling out of the radio and some falling in to the innards....

Had they perhaps been sitting on a window-sill for years, with the sun shining daily on their backs, causing this?

[slartibartfast]

I have 3 squeezebox radios and the plastic around the power port/ethernet adapter is completely disintegrating. It is crumbling into little pieces, some falling out of the radio and some falling in to the innards.
I have a battery backup in one of the radios but there is no battery in the other two. They work fine, but I have never seen this happen on any other piece of electrical equipment.
Just curious if anyone else has experienced this and if youhave you tried to glue/tape something in place?
Thanks.

The plastic around the power port is the same as the main case. The plastic around the ethernet port and headphone socket is a separate piece. Could you show a photo of the issue?

[Dylanc421]

1st two are from one radio. other pics are from second radio.
Same area on both phones.
Dry rotting into tiny pieces. Some falling all over the floor, other pieces falling inside the radio.
Never near heat, sun exposure, etc.
One other radio I have is fine.
All about the same age.

[Redrum]

wow...

I believe the case is ABS, not sure of that insert part. The only thing I know of that ABS doesn't like is some solvents and UV.

In plastic molding often regrind is used (plastic that was already molded and reground for reuse) ABS is pretty tolerant in that regard, but in general there is a certain max percentage that should be used.

I have no idea. Are their production dates/lot stamps anywhere? My thought would be to see if the three bad ones were produced near the same time, and the other was not.

Jim

[P Nelson]

ON the Radios with the problem, do they have the battery installed? Perhaps the battery leaked or created gases that is causing the problem.

[Redrum]

ON the Radios with the problem, do they have the battery installed? Perhaps the battery leaked or created gases that is causing the problem.

He mentioned in the first post that there was a battery in one, but not the other two. Very curious.

Jim

[JoeMuc2009]

Wow, these photos are really unusual. The material around the Ethernet and headphone jacks is a rather stiff sort of rubber which seals the case around the connectors so the bass is more controlled. It is not airtight but will help quite a bit. You may find that the bass is rather weak in comparison to a radio where this rubber piece is intact.
I have never seen this component fall apart like shown in the pictures. Could it be that your two Radios were manipulated before and these rubber pieces have been replaced by something else that would develop like this? It looks like the piece that is still there but falling apart is white on the inside, like they have just been coated to look black, and the coating is now flaking off. All the ones I have seen yet were solid black material with no coating whatsoever.
Another idea: maybe the radios were placed in a rather warm environment? Might be something similar to what happens to the Touch IR remote and Boom front panels which deteriorate especially when exposed to sunlight a lot. Heat, UV light, or both seem to damage the coating formulation.
You might want to give Play-Doh or Sugru a try and create your own sealing plug there. It won't look pretty but will help sound-wise.

[slartibartfast]

Wow, these photos are really unusual. The material around the Ethernet and headphone jacks is a rather stiff sort of rubber which seals the case around the connectors so the bass is more controlled. It is not airtight but will help quite a bit. You may find that the bass is rather weak in comparison to a radio where this rubber piece is intact.
I have never seen this component fall apart like shown in the pictures. Could it be that your two Radios were manipulated before and these rubber pieces have been replaced by something else that would develop like this? It looks like the piece that is still there but falling apart is white on the inside, like they have just been coated to look black, and the coating is now flaking off. All the ones I have seen yet were solid black material with no coating whatsoever.
Another idea: maybe the radios were placed in a rather warm environment? Might be something similar to what happens to the Touch IR remote and Boom front panels which deteriorate especially when exposed to sunlight a lot. Heat, UV light, or both seem to damage the coating formulation.
You might want to give Play-Doh or Sugru a try and create your own sealing plug there. It won't look pretty but will help sound-wise.

There was a product on Dragon's Den in the UK last night which would be ideal for this 😀

https://www.fixits.com/

[Redrum]

Those stick look pretty cool. I was actually thinking maybe use a piece of high density neoprene sheet, cut to shape a little oversized (and undersized hole for ethernet) and compressed into position. If you took one apart, maybe you could do a little better job.

Jim

[cfuttrup]

I am wondering what is the difference between good ole SUGRU and the new FixIts stuff? ...

https://sugru.com/

[slartibartfast]

I am wondering what is the difference between good ole SUGRU and the new FixIts stuff? ...
https://sugru.com/

On Dragon's Den they did say it was an existing industrial product so maybe that's it.

[Redrum]

both pretty cool products I think I need some. I have a thing for adhesives

Jim

[Dylanc421]

I want to thank everyone for their replies and insight. None of the radios were near sunlight or heat. House is all air conditioned. Oddly enough as noted one radio is perfectly fine. The backs of both radios are just little chips of plastic as if it dry rotted or something similar. I can send pics of that but they are just a lot of little granules. Falling out of the back and inside the radios as well. I thought for sure a number of owners would have experienced this. Guess it is just an anomaly.