iPod Mini Autopsy

tritone writes "Some fearless soul has disassembled his iPod mini and provided pictures and commentary about the process. This really does seem to be an autopsy since he managed to kill it in the process. That's $249 well spent in the pursuit of knowledge. See the full report at www.ipodlounge.com."

Server is already slow - here's the text

[ghettoboy22]

Photo server is still up at http://gallery.ipodlounge.com/ipod/thumbnails.php? album=6 [ipodlounge.com] Taking apart the iPod mini

February 23, 2004 By Greg Koenig

Apple has crammed a lot of stuff into the anodized aluminum enclosure of the new iPod mini, and taking it apart is no easy task. I'm an industrial designer with lots of experience pulling back the curtain and meeting the wizard in PDAs, Mp3 players, stereos, watches and all sorts of other gear. I am usually pretty good at it, having not broken something in years (lots of bug hunts for tiny parts on the floor though). Except my brand-new iPod mini, where I screwed up big time... twice!

The Procedure:

Tools needed: (1) Wiha 1.5mm flat head screwdriver (1) Wiha Philips #000 screwdriver (1) Needle nose pliers or medical (Kelly type) hemostats (1) Hair dryer

To help illustrate my disassembly adventure, view the iPod mini autopsy photos and follow along.

To begin with, make sure the 'Hold' button is locked into the ON position (showing orange) to prevent the internal components to be turning on while you are taking it apart.

The plastic top and bottom plates are glued into place with a tacky adhesive that will soften considerably when heated so use the hair dryer on a low setting to heat up the top plate. Work the area until it's very warm to the touch. Now turn the mini around so you're looking at the Apple logo and squeeze the two rounded edges together at the top, causing the enclosure to bow a little bit in the middle. Insert the flat bladed screwdriver between the plastic and the metal (in line directly above the Apple logo) and gently pry the plate straight up. Work around the edges, leaving the area around the 'Hold' button till last. When you finally do get to the 'Hold' button area, pry carefully and pull the plate STRAIGHT up. Behind the 'Hold' button are two plastic standoffs (sort of like tabs) that extend down into the case and push the real switch on and off. If you pry the thing out at an angle, you will break one of these standoffs. That was mistake #1 for me. The actual 'Hold' switch soldiered onto the main board broke, so the 'Hold' switch no longer works.

Now perform the same procedure on the plastic bottom plate. When it is removed, you will see a shiny sheet-metal plate held in place under spring tension by 4 tabs inserted into reliefs machined into the enclosure. At the end of each of these tabs, you will see a round hole. Use the Philips #000 in these holes and carefully pry each tab out of its slot. The sheet-metal plate will come right out.

Next, you need to disconnect a ribbon cable that connects the scroll/click wheel assembly to the main baord. This ribbon cable is on the bottom of the mini on the left hand side. It is orange. You can't miss it. Use the 1.5mm blade screwdriver to pry it apart. If there isn't enough slack in the ribbon cable, don't worry, as long as you get the connector loose, you have done your job here.

Turn the mini over, looking back into the top, you will see two tiny philips head screws on either side of another metal plate. Remove these with the #000 screwdriver carefully and put them in a safe place (don't drop these on the floor, you will never see them again).

Now comes the fun part - gently push on the 30 pin connector at the bottom of the mini and all of the main components (on an assembly I call the component sled) will slide right out the top. It is a bit tight, but if you meet major resistance, back off and INSURE you have the ribbon cable disconnected. This is where I messed up and killed my iPod mini, I forgot to check and I pushed with all my might, ripping the ribbon cable off of the male connector. Oops.

The component sled contains nearly all of the iPod's internals; the main circuit board, battery, LCD display and hard drive. While the LCD is held onto the ma inboard with 4 plastic tabs, the battery and HD ar

Slashdotted already - Google Cache

[Trespass]

http://216.239.37.104/search?q=cache:jM4q0XOel_oJ: gallery.ipodlounge.com/ipod/
thumbnails.php%3Falb um%3D6+ipod+mini+autopsy&hl=en &ie=UTF-8

Copy and paste, remove the space, you know the drill.

Re:More like murder

[dnahelix]

Actually, dissecting something while still alive is called a vivisection [reference.com].
But, yeah, you can call that murder.

Re:Server is already slow - here's the text

[Anonymous Coward]

check out google's cache [216.239.37.104]

Re:Eep!

[Kenja]

I'm betting on an old Newton [npds.free.fr].

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Another photo gallery

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't get to the article, but found this one showing a nicely dissected mini ipod...

iPod mini Dissection [ipodding.com]

Re:Well...

[gringo_john]

The battery is covered by the usual on year warranty only. Apple provides an extended warranty which extends the warranty to 2 years.

When the battery dies under warranty, the usual process is that you send your dead iPod in it's whole to Apple and they send you a refurbished unit.

Having said that, there are how-to [techtv.com] documents that show how to open the iPod and swap the battery yourself, saving a bit of money.

I guess all the bad press [jameshoyer.com] that Apple has received over the lifespan issues of the iPod battery has really pushed them to provide the extended warranty and an avenue to have them replace the battery on a pay per battery type deal.

Necropsy

[jkujawa]

It's a necropsy unless the procedure is being done by another iPod mini.
Autopsy refers to dissection of a human by a human, or by extension, some instance of class 'foo' by another instance of class 'foo'.

Actually, in this case, it would be a vivisection, as the iPod started out functional, and died due to the procedure.

Re:Flash drive

[GizmoToy]

It is hard drive based. Its just that the hard drive used the Compact Flash interface more common to flash memory. It's a tiny hard drive manufactured by Hitachi.

Re:Waste of money indeed!

[mikedaisey]

It's actually about 40% smaller in volume...and if you're dickering over storage capacity you aren't teh target audience.

Re:$249?

[clf8]

Ok, we'll go over it again boys and girls. It's the market, the Mini isn't there to compete with the iPod. The Mini is there to compete against your $200-300 1gig flash player. If you want to spend $100, then get a little 256MB player and be done with it.

You probably think Firewire is useless too.

spend $249 and get ... $480, plus

[Mablung]

Here's a discussion [studio2f.com] that talks about yanking the ($479.95) Hitachi microdrive inside. More discussion on my original source: boingboing [boingboing.net]

No sig for you!

Nope.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's true that the "auto-" prefix indicates "oneself," but in this case the sense is in "seeing for oneself."

Re:We Need Help...

[joshua404]

The drive used in the iPod Mini retails for much more than the Mini sells for. Apple is either getting an amazing volume price from Hitachi or they are taking it up their collective asses in order to infiltrate the market.

yet another dissected ipod mini

[mohrt]

Here is another one [ipoding.com].

Re:$249?

[joshua404]

I bought the Mini because it's significantly smaller than the 15 gig iPod. It's also much more solidly built thanks to the aluminum case. Moving the controls under the jog dial is also a huge improvement. But the size and sturdiness were what convinced me: The mini fits into a relatively cramped pocket on a pair of jeans or gym shorts.. the regular iPod just can't do that.

Re:$249?

[Darth Maul]

Is that why they're selling well right now? Some people want a smaller device.

I have a 15GB iPod. My wife and I just bought a iPod mini (blue) for her to use. I must admit it's pretty cool. You really need to see it in person to appreciate the small size and brush-aluminum coolness factor. I was pretty skeptical at first, too.

Re:all that work and no 4gb camera friendly CF

[ubertemp]

No, he took it apart because he was looking to start a service where you can have your case re-anodized in the color, colors or even images of your own choosing.

Re:Eep!

[tuffy]

That .php extension is always a sign of doom for a webserver. I'm sure that dynamic, script-driven website seemed like a good idea until a ton of people decided to come knocking all at once...

Re:Well...

[cabingirl]

The battery is probably not covered by warranty or extended warranty [apple.com] if the iPod has been opened, because they would likely call that an unauthorized repair.

Apple does offer a battery replacement service if your iPod is out of warranty, but I don't know if the same restrictions would apply.

Re:Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

If I wanted to wait a half hour for dead processes to end, I'd switch to Windows. kill -9 rawks.

Re:Slashdotted already - Google Cache

[randyest]

Screw the "drill", why don't you just make a link [216.239.37.104]?

5 extra seconds for your trouble, vs 1000 x 5s for everyone; should be a no-brainer.

Re:4 GB CF extraction..

[addaon]

Compact flash is an interface. It is used by solid state disks, rotating disks, modems, and other devices. In this case, it is rather obvious from context that the CF device under discussion was a hard drive.

Re:We Need Help...

[shamino0]

I know of a few digital camera junkies that are considering buying the iPod just for the hard drive

If you do, point them to this page [steves-digicams.com]. The author there recommends buying a Creative Nomad MuVo. It has the same 4G drive and sells for $200.

4GB Microdrive -- Profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a similar drive found in the Creative Labs Muvo2 MP3 player [linuxathome.com]. If you look in eBay, the drive goes for a pretty penny, considering that retail price for it is fairly high. Lots of people are selling their "OEM Microdrive" on eBay and I am willing to bet that the majority of them are pilfered from one of these MP3 players.

Re:Somewhat related question

[cyberworm]

I've got a 40gig iPod, and haven't had a problem with it. I'm pretty rough on my hardware (This iPod has been dropped 4 times since christmas) as well as the father of a two year old son (who found it laying out and decided to press the buttons ruthlessly and shake it a few times). Still works and none the worse for it.
As far as skipping goes, if it's in my pocket when I go up or down stairs quickly, it hasn't skipped yet.
In fact, the only problem I have had, happened when using the Belkin Battery Pack. When the batteries in the pack started dying, the music slowed down, similar to a record slowing down.

I recently got an iSkin for my pod, which I think was a great investment for helping to protect it.

aloha

Re:More like murder

[shamino0]

If you are going to kill an iPod just to show how '1337 you are...

According to the article, he was figuring out the take-apart procedure in order to begin offering a re-coloring service for those iPod mini owners that don't like Apple's choice of colors.

Obviously, if you're going to fuse new colors into anodized aluminum, you don't want to do it with any electronic or plastic parts still attached.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Somewhat related question

[lytlebill]

Having used iPod the very first time I went snowboarding, I can say it lived fairly well despite my frequent crashes. That trip, I loaned it to my more experienced friend, and he loved it, all the while shredding more and crashing less. I have a 10GB second gen iPod, and including that visit to the slopes, it has suffered minor drops very well. By minor I mean 2-3 feet, while it is either off or running. So far, I haven't lost it onto concrete or metal from distance (knock on wood), but I purchased it with an extended warranty from CompUSA, so I imagine I have a slightly more reassured attitude about the whole thing.

Re:4 GB CF extraction..

[Giant Killer]

for those too lazy to hunt through and find the 4 or 5 threads on this, the basic gist is this:
1) removal of the 4gb hard drive is easy (I hesitate to call it compact flash right now, but wait for the explanation) with the instructions mentioned in this article
2) repartitioning in windows or macosx is no problem
3) getting it to work in a digital camera is more problematic. one of the guys on dpreview was able to get in contact with an engineer from hitachi who said that these drives do not conform to the CF standard, and have not been branded that way. people are currently working on trying to find a way to hack around the limitations, but so far efforts have been fruitless. it is recommended that all slashdot hackers jump into the fray.
4) instead, go buy a creative muvo2 at amazon [amazon.com] or buy.com [buy.com]. people have reported these drives working very nicely, and being able to replace the muvo CF card with many solid state CF cards. i hear that amazon is delivering in about a week, even though they say it is a preorder.

Re:spend $249 and get ... $480, plus

[blackmonday]

If you're getting the microdrive included with the $249 mini, I fail to see how this is card can be considered to have a value of $480.

Shouldn't it be the drive that used to cost $480? Indeed, I checked ebay and the price of those drives have magically fallen to around $250. What a surprise!

Re:4 GB CF extraction; Hitachi's card warranty

[Bushcat]

A number of people have reported problems getting the CF to work with their cameras

Most digital cameras don't support CF cards above 2GB because they can't read/write FAT32. If you think you're in that category, try creating a 2GB FAT partition on the CF card to test it. More recent cameras are OK with FAT32.

The Creative Labs 4GB Muvo2 has a Hitachi 4GB drive. The player is sold out most places since people are pulling the 4GB drive for their cameras. Check eBay for listings of disembowelled Muvo2's for sale. In Creative's case, I believe part of the the shortage is due to them re-engineering the player to mecahnically lock the CF card in place, probably with solder.

The part in the iPod is HMS360404D5CF00: this is the same part number Hitachi gives to its standard CF card drive, so I assume people will get it working Real Soon Now.

Of most interest to the long-term health of the iPod, Hitachi warrants the drive for 300,000 head load/unload cycles, and 140 power-on hours per month. Hmmm...

Re:I'm sure... (RTFA)

[dukeisgod]

RTFA. He says he took it apart to explore feasability of custom anodizing mini's for his business. The sooner he figures that out, the better for him.

Re:More like murder

[Phroggy]

From http://developer.apple.com/hardware/ipod/ [apple.com] (extra dot added for spamproofing):

iPod Accessory Developers
Interested in developing a accessory for the new iPod and need more information on the connectors and technical specifications? If so please send an email to ipoddev@apple..com [mailto].

You've done that? What did they say?

Re:More like murder

[Golias]

Basically, if you are not a major developer interested in pursuing a partnership-like relationship with them, they don't intend to tell you squat.

And yes, that is the exact e-mail address I sent to.