the 1st generation iPod Nano

The first generation of the iPod Nano came out in September of 2005, and if you own and still use one of these then chances are the battery is on its last leg.  I received mine as a Christmas present in 2005 and I used it regularly for the first couple years.  Then I let it sit unused on my dresser for the past year (been using my Samsung Juke), and when I finally charged it up again the battery only lasted about an hour.  Since I plan on using it regularly again at the gym, I decided to order a new battery for it and see what was involved in swapping batteries.

Warning: The following is a tutorial on disassembling your 1st generation iPod Nano and replacing the battery.  When attempting this, be aware that basic soldering skills will be needed.  Do not attempt this battery replacement if you are not comfortable working with circuitry.

The first step is to get your replacement battery ordered.  There are a lot of different places to order one if you look around online.  I just did an ebay search and ended up getting an 850 mAh battery for about $6.  The original battery is only 400 mAh, so I ended up with more than twice the battery capacity.  Most resellers of this battery also include “removal tools”, but trust me, they are pretty much worthless.  I ended up snapping the tips off of both of them.

Once your battery has arrived, you’ll need a few tools to accomplish the task:

• very fine soldering iron (a small amount of solder may also be needed)
• one or two very small flat-head screwdrivers (an eyeglass screwdriver will work fine)
• X-acto knife (or equivalent sharp razor)
• very small needle-nose pliers or a pair of tweezers

Now that you’ve got the tools required, it’s time to tackle the hardest part about this entire project:  actually getting the iPod Nano apart.  I had an invisibleSHIELD on mine that I really wanted to keep intact, so the first thing I did was take my X-acto knife and slice the shield along the tiny little groove where the front of the Nano meets the back.  I was hoping this would work out okay, but after trying this I would highly suggest just pulling your shield off of the back altogether.  The reason for this is that even if you do successfully slice the shield without scratching too much of your Nano, once you start trying to pry the iPod apart you end up mangling the tiny little strip of invisibleSHIELD that is left on the upper half.  By the time you’re done all you have is a lot of gunk that you’ll have to clean off.  A new shield is about $20 bucks though, so you might still want to give it a shot. You could maybe even send Zagg an email and see if you could come up with a reason to get a replacement (they are guaranteed for life).

attempting to carefully slice the invisibleSHIELD

It’s kind of hard to get a good feeling for how the Nano is actually held together until you finally manage to get it apart, but the best way to describe it is that the front face is actually sitting inside the back metal cover and it’s held in place by about twelve little metal clips.  What you want to do is take your flat-head screwdriver (or something sharp enough to get between the front and back pieces of the Nano, but still strong enough to pry with) and press it in between the front plastic piece and the back metal piece.  While doing this angle the screwdriver ever so slightly towards the back of the iPod.  If you angle towards the front you’ll end up creating little divots in the plastic.  Once you are able to get a little bit of separation between the two pieces you can follow along with the second screwdriver to help keep the pieces separated.  Work your way around the Nano slowly prying it farther and farther apart as you go.  Be patient and careful, as it definitely isn’t an easy task.  When you have enough of a gap to get the screwdriver in a little farther, slide it in the gap towards the back piece, then with a prying motion try to push the top piece up and out of the back.  Hopefully with enough patience and work, you can get the two pieces of your iPod separated.

Now that you have access to the circuit board, it’s time to do some soldering.  First you’ll want to remove the small little piece of yellow tape holding the wires of the battery against the circuit board and also the piece covering the three solder joints.  If you’re careful enough you can reuse them on your new battery, so try not to bend them up too much.  The next step is actually soldering each of the wires just enough to pull them out.  If done correctly, you should be able to use the same little spots of solder for the new battery wires.  Once the wires are loose, you’ll have to pull the old battery out of its place (it’s held there by a small strip of glue).  Be sure to pay attention to what color wires go to each solder point.

soldering in the new battery

Once the old battery is out, put your new battery right where the old one was and line up the wires for re-soldering.  Again, make sure you have the battery turned the right way with the correctly colored wires going to the right points.  If you hold the circuit upright and face the circuit, the black wire should be on the right.  Now just solder the new battery wires into place, being careful not to let any solder flow onto the surface mounted resistors that are close to the contact points.  After soldering you can position the wires along the circuit board just as before, and re-apply the little pieces of yellow tape.

pressing the iPod back together

Regardless of how confident you are in your soldering abilities, it is probably a good idea to test things out just to make sure.  So, turn on your newly powered iPod and cross your fingers.  If all went well it should power up just fine, and now you’re ready to put it back together.  The only thing to be careful of here is to make sure the hold switch on the case and the physical slider on the circuit are in the same position before you place the two pieces back together.  Once they are, just place the front piece back into the metal back and press the two together.  You’ll want to press around the entire perimeter slowly making sure each connector snaps back into place.

Now, go enjoy the extended life of your iPod Nano.