iPod Resurrection

Ok, well here's how the story goes...

I bought a refurbished 30GB iPod Classic Video from www.woot.com for $89.99 + $5 shipping for the sole purpose of connecting it to the back of my Pioneer radio that allows me to control the iPod using the Pioneer interface.  I sync'd only my newest music and a few favorite artist to it.  I have another iPod thats 160GB that holds all of my music that I have in iTunes.

This refurb iPod started acting up on me about 2 years after I purchased it, and from my diagnosis it seemed to be that they battery wasn't holding a charge.  I took it to the Apple store, of course it was out of warranty, but they did a free diagnosis in hope that I would purchase service from them.  Well they basically said the battery was dead and they don't fix iPod's they just replace them a discounted price.  So for me to get another 30GB iPod to replace the dead one it was going to cost me $160.  So I started looking on amazon & ebay for another reburb $30 for cheap.  I place a few bids on some, but eventually they past the amount I was willing to spend for a device that essentially stays in my truck (with no alarm system).  In other words a device that I didn't really care about.

But then I found this eBay listing, Battery for Apple iPod Video 5th Gen 30GB Generation 5G, and I read the information and decided, why not... the iPod is already dead, if I can't make it worse, plus its $6 plus shipping...  Lets GO!

The battery came and included two plastic devices that I would use to pry my iPod open.  It also came with step by step instructions and a warning the let me know that if I'm concerned the cosmetic look of my iPod that I should probably avoid this because often times pry marks are left on the iPod or the device doesn't close as snuggly as it was before.  Ehhh.... Who cares! Its time to be a geek and take this bad boy apart!

The black battery is the OEM.  It wasn't easy to get this sucker open, but when I did get it open it looked as simple as I thought it would on the inside.

Below is a picture of how it looked when I got the two side separated from one another.  The Battery and sound port were plugged to the motherboard on the top side of the iPod.  The motherboard is hidden by the hard drive in the is picture.

Old one out, new one in! Easy as pie! Now to reconnect everything to the motherboad.

BOOOM! It works like a charm! 

Here's what it looks like and you can see in the last picture that the top left doesn't seem to close all the way anymore.  But hey I keep it in a snug case that will keep it closed anyway.  Not to mention the fact that it stays in my glove compartment unless I'm taking it out to add more music.  


All in All, I'm happy I went this cheaper and more fun route instead of wasting money on another device that might die on me in a year or two.

Thanks for READING! Feel free to comment and pass this on to other that might be interested in doing the same thing.




-LAEC