Velo 1 strange issue

I just bought a Velo 1 off Ebay. It works well, and is a fun little machine. The issue with it is this - it smells. Badly. The previous owner(s) appear to have smoked alot, or hung out in extremely smokey places, or at least left there Velo 1 in extremely smokey places.

Regardless of the cause, I tried wiping it down with computer wipes, a lightly dampened cloth, and even a paper towel with a little hand sanitizer on it. It still smells.

Anyone have any ideas?

P.S. I'm really not a wuss.

Febreeze? (half joking)

Well, there's one thing Joe Blow never covered.

I'm thinking that even if you can wipe away the source of the smell from the outside, there's likely to be residue inside as well if indeed it's from cigarette smoke. You may have to open it up and do some wiping inside as well. That's all I can come up with at the moment.

Unfortuantely CE Geek is right, the electronics on the board generate static fields and they attract the particles which traps as dust and causes your problem. Dusting out is really your best (and most hygienic) option.

I can sympathize, I bought a Velo 1 from eBay a few years ago and it suffered from the same problem – it stank. After cleaning it, I wrapped it up in one of those scented dryer sheets for a few weeks to get rid of the smell – but then I was left with a Velo that smelled like perfume. Leaving it out for a few months eventually solved the problem.

Rick

OK, thanks for the tips. It good to know I'm not the only one with this issue!

I would go with Richard Plume's advice. I bought an Osaris handheld and it reeked of cigarettes. Cleaning the screen/body and most importantly, time/leaving it open eventually got rid of the smell.

It was awful and I'm a former smoker!

Jake

So maybe if anyone wants to quit smoking, they should buy a smelly old H/PC.

(Sure glad I've never smoked.)

Hmm. It's a shame the the person selling it never mentioned that (They always mention the best bits). Was the Velo in good condition? (Probably not)

If it wasn't that might be something to remember.

It was functional, although it was running CE 2.0 on 4 mb of RAM, so I get alot of out-of-memory errors (I adjusted the memory function in the system folder, which helped somewhat). I was looking for a simple writing tool that used AA batteries and allows me to create text files, so it meets my basic needs. It runs Pocket Word and Pocket Excel fine, and I've used the IR to transfer files to my laptop. I haven't tried the modem yet.

Given that it cost less than $10 including shipping, I can't complain too much. I'm hoping I can get a ram card to increase the ram.

The smell has subsided somewhat, so I will just wait it out.

I found that with running a Velo 1 with CE 2.0, it wasn't easy without the elusive 8mb RAM chip, not if I wanted to run all of CE 2.0 functions and have a little room left for file storage.

Since you got it so cheap, and with the cig smell dissipating, sky's the limit with the 8mg RAM/ebay In all honesty, I got mine on ebay for 20 bucks shipped, essentially pretty silly, but w/ the chip, the Velo 1 remains my only handheld that can successfully go back and forth b/w CE 1 and CE 2.

I found a big drain on my backup battery, as in I couldn't replace my main batteries w/o first pluggin in a/c. Which is why I moved to the Sharp Mobilon 4100 for text, etc.

Jake