As one of my spring break projects, I thought I'd replace the battery of my wife's old ipod mini, which wasn't holding a charge anymore...one can do this for about $60 by sending it to various ipod battery replacement services, but I thought I'd give this a try, and got a higher powered ipod mini replacement battery from amazon...there are even higher powered ones, but I wanted to make sure that I'm able to perform this daunting surgery first, so I got one of the least expensive higher powered batteries from some place on amazon.com...it only cost me $12.00 for it, and even that is higher capacity than oem apple battery...
now that I know how to do it, next time I can try one of the higher-end replacements...if i ever need it.
I used this guide to help me with the task:
http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-11293_7-6378822-1.html
this is what the replacement battery came with...1 flat head screwdriver to open the plastic top/bottom of the ipod, and a phillips screwdriver to take the two TINY screws off...this screwdriver was too small for the screws on the ipod: I had to use one that I had in my tool box.
It was (as expected) harder than in that cnet guide: really a PITA to get the top and bottom plastic covers off...heating the sides with a blow dryer and getting the glue soft/melted helped a lot. the bottom side has a metal clip which again was a pain to get off, but with much prying and pulling, it came off: remember to disconnect the click wheel data connector before sliding out the ipod guts (from the top)
i-pod guts: click wheel side:
closer look:
a look at the back side, where the battery is: (old battery shown)
Old battery out, new one in:
sliding everything back in was a bit tricky, but with a lot of patience and steady hands, it is doable.
after connecting the click wheel connector, and putting back the metal clip (bottom) and the 2 plastic covers...
It's alive
test to see if the click wheel still works (it does, in my case), charge the new battery for 3 hrs before use.
It took me about 25 min. to do it all, and if I can do it, most people here can, i'm sure... for $12 and 25 min free labor, a higher capacity battery is not bad, I think. Like I said earlier, there are even higher quality/capacity batteries on the net for more $$.
now that I know how to do it, next time I can try one of the higher-end replacements...if i ever need it.
I used this guide to help me with the task:
http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-11293_7-6378822-1.html
this is what the replacement battery came with...1 flat head screwdriver to open the plastic top/bottom of the ipod, and a phillips screwdriver to take the two TINY screws off...this screwdriver was too small for the screws on the ipod: I had to use one that I had in my tool box.
It was (as expected) harder than in that cnet guide: really a PITA to get the top and bottom plastic covers off...heating the sides with a blow dryer and getting the glue soft/melted helped a lot. the bottom side has a metal clip which again was a pain to get off, but with much prying and pulling, it came off: remember to disconnect the click wheel data connector before sliding out the ipod guts (from the top)
i-pod guts: click wheel side:
closer look:
a look at the back side, where the battery is: (old battery shown)
Old battery out, new one in:
sliding everything back in was a bit tricky, but with a lot of patience and steady hands, it is doable.
after connecting the click wheel connector, and putting back the metal clip (bottom) and the 2 plastic covers...
It's alive
test to see if the click wheel still works (it does, in my case), charge the new battery for 3 hrs before use.
It took me about 25 min. to do it all, and if I can do it, most people here can, i'm sure...
for $12 and 25 min free labor, a higher capacity battery is not bad, I think. Like I said earlier, there are even higher quality/capacity batteries on the net for more $$.
