My Problem

My Gen5 iPod is an amazing thing. Movies, FM, music, tons of room, etc. I used it to take moves and listen to podcasts on long trips. But I must have neglected the charging because it plain stopped working. Dead, Nada.

Being a couple years old, out of warranty, I had nothing to lose by trying to fix it. I found your web site, parts and pictures, and jumped right in.

My Fix

The repair was supposed to be "very difficult", so I steeled myself for trouble. Nothing to lose, nothing to lose. Pretty tiny ribbon cables, lots of adhesive everywhere, never the right tool... After the thumb wheel popped out I found an extra part with a bitty spring that fell out. I couldn't see where it came from and was not mentioned in the repair. I'd deal with it later. Solder wick didn't work, so I did the heat and pry, heat and pry. I didn't have enough hands to align, press and heat to put the new battery in, but I have one of those two alligator clip holder things which took a while but made the operation work. My three little connections looked as good as new. Reassembly went quickly, forget adding more adhesive. The little black plastic extra part with the bitty spring fit into a slot under the middle of the thumb wheel and that made sense. The rest went fine, plugged it in and whoa - it's alive. I took a short movie and everything is like new. Amazing.

My Advice

I wouldn't recommend this for anybody who hasn't done a lot of careful soldering. And you have to be gentle and patient and have magnifiers.