[ErsatzTom]

My girlfriend swims for an hour every day. Since she really likes to listen to music while she swims, she currently buys these pouches that seal up a walkman to make it waterproof. The only problem is that they always end up leaking a little bit of water so she can really only use a "sports" water-resistent walkman in the pouch.

She'd really love to be able to switch over to an mp3 player in the pool, however. Ideally, an iPod. She is really sick of making mix tapes. She's leaning towards getting one of the sony water resistent mp3 players, but by the time she gets more memory for it, it will be almost as expensive as an iPod and only hold 2 hours of music, usb vs. firewire, etc.

So, does anyone have any bright ideas about sealing up an iPod so that it is fairly waterproof? She could continue to use the current pouch that she uses which is big enough to hold a pretty bulky cassette walkman to keep most of the water off of it. She really just needs to come up with a way of keeping what water may occasionally leak into the pouch from damaging the iPod.

Here is info on the AquaTunes pouch she currently uses: http://www.aquatunes.com/ I'd really appreciate any ideas you might have.

tom

[Todd Madson]

Have you considered placing the iPod inside a ziplock bag, then another
ziplock bag, then the pouch?

Also, I remember from my modelbuilding days when I built a model battleship.

It had an actual operating electric motor to propel it.

It also had a hole in the bottom of the hull in order to let the drive shaft
for the propeller through.

They suggested using vaseline (petroleum jelly) to prevent water seepage.

It worked surprisingly well. But you'd almost have to seal the pouch
from the inside (the edges anyway).

It still seems really dicey to me. It sounds like it would be great -
swimming and listening to music but I don't know if I'd want to risk a
$400 device.

You could always try the ziplock baggie test on her current device to
see how well it keeps water away from the unit she's using now and then
depending on the results try it once with the iPod.

Caveat: "I cannot be held legally responsible for those who have drowned
their iPod. Ruined drowned iPods are not the legal responsibility of
Todd Madson. Refer to your warranty for specific coverages and liabilities."

[ 11-21-2001: Message edited by: Todd Madson ]

[ 11-21-2001: Message edited by: Todd Madson ]

good suggestion todd, but he'll still probably run into a seepage where the headphones have to run out of the container. the best solution by far is to put the ipod in the aquatunes bag she already has, and then get a Johnny Space Commander Mask from Mainway Industries. This will solve the problem of needing a hole for the headphones. as an added bonus, she won't need goggles anymore either!

[Dogma]

Sounds like a plan for new waterproofing case. Let's see...

Take a standard double sealed waterproofing case, with no, I repeat, no holes between the inner and outer parts. Instead, hack together a sealed, rubberised unit a bit like this :




The iPod hooks into the adaptor with a small patch cable, and the 'exposed' end is sealed - no electronics are exposed to the elements. The case has a set of waterproof headphones attached. There is a possibillity of making the headphones swppable, but this would be tougher.

[Dogma]

...or you could also wrap the unit in a small facecloth before you put it in a pouch - this would soak up any small amount of liquid. I don't know how well the iPod will cope with any humidity though...