All right, lets continue with the iPod repairs. (For part 1 go here)
iPod Nano 6th Generation. The Power button of doing.
So the next iPod had its power button stuck, which meant it wasn’t turning on or off unless external power was supplied. At the end it turns out, this issue is very common with these iPods, the problem is a really small plastic disc that gets destroyed after daily use, which leads to the metallic button not able to click the small push button.
We have a solution for it though. Open it up, replace the plastic disc, and keep a good iPod from going to the bin. Do your planet a favor.
Tools
Same as part one with some additions.
- #00 Phillips Screwdriver
- Plastic Opening tools
- Plastic picks
- Suction Cup
- Heat Gun
Steps
Following the guide on how to open it, use the heat gun, plastic picks and suction cup to open the iPod screen.
You’ll end up with
Use the screwdriver to remove the 2 screws in the EMI Shield, and you’ll get:
Carefully unplug the two connectors that keep the screen attached.
Remove the battery using the plastic opener tools:
Remove the four screws that hold the buttons to the iPod body.
Carefully peel away the black tape, just move it out of the way, don’t peel it off completely.
This will reveal the button assembly, carefully take it out. Notice that the power button is missing the 0.2 mm black disc that serves as the “pusher” on the push button. That disc is present in each of the volume +/- buttons.
Now here it gets interesting. We need to figure out what to put there that would work the same as the disc. If your disk is on the iPod body because it just feel off, just replace it and your are done.
In my case it was MIA so… I had to improvise.
Enter your friend the hot glue gun!!
I basically needed to add some sort of disc, so I thought a hot glue disc would do it, something like this:
Sadly, it didn’t work.
You see, the plastic discs are made of hard plastic, and that allows the metallic button to pass the force to the push button when they are pressed. Hot glue is squishy, when you apply force to the button, it absorbs the force applied and it doesn’t transfer enough of it to the push button.
So the next step -I thought- was to add something hard, and use the glue to hold it in place. And this turned out to be the answer:
Enter your next friend, the solder residue.
Sometimes when you solder you get lots of these shavings when you clean your soldering iron, I opened my soldering iron cleaner compartment (which has a brass mesh) and there were a lot of these. As a word of advice, get the smallest one possible.
I got that piece and stuck it on the button with hot glue like so:
And that was it.
It took me 4 attempts to get it working fine, basically changing the solder residue to be a smaller piece each time, till I found the right size that worked.
After that, I just needed to assemble it back, put the screws in, replace the black tape, put the battery in… you get the idea, same process but backwards.
And that’s it. the iPod power button works again 🙂
Hope that these guides help you in case you need to repair your stuff. Don’t throw your old devices to the trash, sometimes they can be repaired for next to nothing and it will keep giving you good times.
‘Till next time!
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