iPod Replacement tools

Mijn probleem

I replaced the battery in my 30 GB iPod

Mijn oplossing

Within the first few minutes I broke both plastic tools. (see picture) They are very soft plastic. I ended up using my jeweler's screwdriver set. Getting the first tab loose, so that I could move on, took some trial and error. Upon reassembly, I noticed that one of the tiny "grippers" for the top tab had broken. It would have been nice to have a picture of the tab in order to see how it holds the case together.

In removing the ribbon cable in step #5 the cable unexpectedly came out without the connector. It seemed that this is normal. The connector lifted some, but stayed in place. I removed it in order to install the cable into it at reassembly.

I did not see the purpose of step #8. I did not remove the second cable, mostly due to my experience with the first. I could easily lay the two parts of the iPod side by side.

The battery cable needs to be bent in two locations before reassembly. Before starting the project, I wondered what I was going to use to stick the new battery to the case. The two strips of tape remained stuck to the case, making this a non-issue.

The reassembly was fairly straight forward. A little moving around of the rubber insulators was necessary in order to close the case.

Before pressing the case together, I turned on the iPod. I did not want to have to disassemble the case again. Power came on with a message that I had not seen before... with a frowning face and in many languages. This told me that the power was working, so I turned it off and pushed the case together. I plugged it into my computer's USB port and the menu came up and synchronization went as usual, and the battery is charging. Job done.

Mijn advies

In starting press straight down with the tool. The case will separate slightly to start. It requires a lot of patience... much more than opening up my MAC mini. Everything here is smaller and more delicate. The plastic tools would have been better, but it can be done with a pair of small (3.0 and 3.8 mm) screwdrivers.