iPod gets exploded, trapped in resin

Sure, your iPod is portable, lightweight, and easy to use -- but it's not exactly special is it? Perhaps you should be thieving a page from a young man named Billy Chasen, who has decided to rip apart his 4G player and encase it in a brick of translucent resin. Here's the best part: it still works. By also including the dock internals in the project, he's able to charge and control the exploded device. Practical? Not really, but that's art for you. Damien Hirst would be proud... or is suing.

[Thanks, Sam]

[GarickP @ Nov 13th 2007 1:15PM]

This is actually really cool, be a nice add on in a modern house.

[melloncollie @ Nov 13th 2007 1:24PM]

No, it would not.

[jaalin @ Nov 13th 2007 1:16PM]

love how its being held up by lego blocks

[DR @ Nov 13th 2007 1:16PM]

Ummm... are Lego blocks the best stands in this application?

[Cagrino @ Nov 13th 2007 1:21PM]

Hey, quit trying to steal Zune's thunder!

[Luis Fernández @ Nov 13th 2007 5:15PM]

What Thunder?

[Joseph @ Nov 14th 2007 3:17AM]

lightening always comes after lightening! kachow!

[Randall @ Nov 13th 2007 1:25PM]

Whats more surprising is that the 4g iPod worked before he put it in the resin.
Just kidding, I'm still bitter that I dropped mine and it broke.

[Elliot @ Nov 13th 2007 2:36PM]

My 4G is alive and kicking, still gets 6-8 hours on the battery.

[Isaac Anderson @ Nov 13th 2007 3:39PM]

lol i sympathize... mine was stolen @ school

[Grant @ Nov 13th 2007 3:49PM]

mine worked great when i sold it a month ago, only the battery life was like 6 or 7 hours instead of the original 9.

[Christian Martin @ Nov 13th 2007 1:26PM]

Pfft, needs to be encased in carbonite.

[Dean @ Nov 13th 2007 1:36PM]

very cool, but doesn't the harddrive need ventilation?

[NinjaWombat @ Nov 13th 2007 1:55PM]

The nano uses flash, no hard drive.

[Bryan Whiting @ Nov 13th 2007 1:45PM]

Correct me if i'm wrong, but I think the ventilation hole in hard drives are only to keep the hard drive from exploding or imploding if there is a change in pressure in the hard drive's external environment. So since the thing is encased in rosin, the pressure will not change, so there is no need to vent the drive.
-bryan

[Gene @ Nov 13th 2007 1:48PM]

Actually, this may do better at cooling the hard drive than it did when it was put together. I think that because it's not all squeezed up on the mainboard and the screen, and that heat may transfer differently is resin than in its normal confined, heated (not including ambient temperature of the users pocket/hand) environment.
I don't know...
Just an idea.
GR

[Bryan @ Nov 13th 2007 3:09PM]

no, the hard drive needs cooling, and the resin would actually transfer the heat better than air, it just can't flow like air, but since Ipods have no fan to move the air anyway, the resin would be more effective in cooling. Go outside during winter, it's cold, touch something, it's colder. They are the same temp, solids transfer heat faster than gas.

[Grant @ Nov 13th 2007 3:57PM]

agreed with all the above posts.... except the nano comment... thats no nano.
The resin would work as a giant heat sink, and since it's not all sandwiched together with multiple other (slightly)heat producing components, this should be the best cooled iPod ever.

[MikeG @ Nov 13th 2007 6:48PM]

These comments are all obsolete ,it's incased in resin you can't turn it on or use the wheel at all.

[Dean @ Nov 13th 2007 6:58PM]

Mike, there is a dock connector so it can be used with a dock to control it, read the article. also, about the pressure in the drive, wouldn't it fluctuate as the temperature changes because air expands as it is heated, and the drive gets hot from the inside out? but i guess since the case is not aloud any expansion at all, it would probably be fine, that is assuming none of the internal components are pressure sensitive.

[GregA @ Nov 13th 2007 1:42PM]

The craftsman ship is kinda funky. Seems like he should have put it in a vacuum chamber and pumped out all those air bubbles before the resin set up.

[Blake Bowen @ Nov 13th 2007 1:45PM]

Hmm, I wonder if there are any heat issues with the hard drive with extended playing. I'm no chemist, but I'm pretty sure resin makes a lousy heatsink.

[jerry @ Nov 13th 2007 1:46PM]

Now I want to see him replace _that_ battery

[Karl Viklund @ Nov 13th 2007 1:51PM]

Hah. That's cool :)

[spaceb @ Nov 13th 2007 1:53PM]

It's like Jurassic Park.

[Tom @ Nov 13th 2007 2:03PM]

What I don't get is how he's going to even play music with this if he can't get to the scroll wheel, so what's the point of having it work?

[Andrew Cooper @ Nov 13th 2007 2:08PM]

@tom, If he has access to the dock connector, how about a wired remote?

[bugmat @ Nov 13th 2007 3:12PM]

"By also including the dock internals in the project, he's able to charge and control the exploded device."

Guess he just uses a dock accessory.

[jbelkin @ Nov 13th 2007 2:13PM]

It would be cooler if the guy managed to make clear resin instead of cloudy resin ...

[Constable Odo @ Nov 13th 2007 2:15PM]

When this block is found 50,000 years from now and future man figures what it is, Apple will have 100% of market share for mp3 players. All Zunes will have long been buried and forgotten, just as they are now.

[bugmat @ Nov 13th 2007 3:30PM]

I hope the same will happen with your posts.


Naw..just kidding but you did leave yourself wide open you must admit! ;-D

[Garst @ Nov 13th 2007 2:19PM]

It's no longer portable now, is it Billy?

[Andir3.0 @ Nov 13th 2007 3:48PM]

Maybe if you get a dozen of these and put them in a really big glass...

[JT_X @ Nov 13th 2007 4:29PM]

The pocket would have to be HUGE.

[Bennett @ Nov 13th 2007 2:32PM]

I wonder what it would look like if they *actually* exploded something in resin. Like, using explosives.

[AndrewNeo @ Nov 13th 2007 4:02PM]

That's what I inferred from the title.. a little disappointing in comparison, but still interesting.

[Brian @ Nov 13th 2007 2:45PM]

Ha-ha, Damien Hirst. For anyone who doesn't know him, check out:
http://www.whitecube.com/artists/hirst

He _should_ be suing!

[loci @ Nov 13th 2007 2:51PM]

as resin encasings go...he's done a really shoddy job of it

ugly art for ugly people

[spaceb @ Nov 13th 2007 2:53PM]

The most important question is: will it blend now?

[Sam D @ Nov 13th 2007 3:09PM]

kinda dumb

[etrigan @ Nov 13th 2007 3:20PM]

"Arm-band" strap to follow.

[Greg @ Nov 13th 2007 3:31PM]

It's a Zune?
Oh, no, sorry, I saw an old, bulkier iPod, and thought it was the new Zune ;)

[kcar @ Nov 13th 2007 5:28PM]

It's what a Zune dreams of being...

[kevjohn @ Nov 13th 2007 3:46PM]

When I die I want to be encased in resin.

[EJDJ @ Nov 13th 2007 3:57PM]

"Lucite hardening ... must end life in classic Lorne Greene pose from "Battlestar Galactica." Best ... death ... ever!"

[chris @ Nov 13th 2007 3:51PM]

I'd like to reply to Bryan who posted at 3:09 PM. Heat transfer is a combination of convection, conduction and radiation. The efficiency of them decreases in that order.

Convection means fluid flow (air) carrying away heat. Think actual temperature vs wind chill temperature. The faster the wind, the bigger the difference.

What you mentioned is conduction and you were probably thinking of metal. That's what heat sinks are made of and you are right - they work well at that.

However, not ALL solids conduct heat well. A great example is the material the tiles on the shuttle are made of. If you touched one that had been sitting outside all day, it would rapidly warm up at the surface to skin temperature.

Resins are generally very poor heat conductors. Think vinyl siding or other plastics. They very quickly warm to the touch too and for the same reason.

The depth of the material also plays a role when it comes to insulation. I'd have to say I'm certain that the iPod playing continuously at normal volumes wouldn't last long (say 24 hours) with the block starting at room temperature.

Oh - as for radiation, it's proportional to the cube of the temperature difference between the item and it's surroundings. Seeing as how modern CPUs die at around 30-40 degrees above average room temp, that's not going to help much either.

All in all, I think it's a very well done tongue in cheek/neat project. These days, I'd even qualify it as art depending on the message the originator was trying to express (if any).

Chris

[Reader @ Nov 13th 2007 4:09PM]

Finally a piece of modern "art" that's at least kinda cool.

[upsidedown @ Nov 13th 2007 4:33PM]

If only it could talk. In 50,000 years we might hear:

Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!

[9bit @ Nov 13th 2007 4:35PM]

Ok, ok. I've got one. What do you call one iPod exploded and encased in resin?
A good start.

[qkwozz @ Nov 13th 2007 5:20PM]

play mime music on it to add to the effect of being trapped in a box