Replacing the battery in an iPod Nano 2nd Generation

There was a feeling of nostalgia when I found my neon green 2nd Gen iPod Nano in the junk drawer. Ah, those were the days; you could click play, and all it did was play music. It’s tech from 2006, which is now considered ancient and collectible!

Back in the days when tech was simple - then it got left in a drawer. Photo credit - Dongyi Liu (flickr)

I tried to power it up, but it was dead and even refused to do anything when connected to a charger. After all these years, the culprit was most likely a dead battery. How hard could it be to replace it? Surely...

Taking It Apart
There are no screws on the outside, so I had to use a box cutter to remove the white plastic caps on the top and bottom, which are glued in place. Once the caps are off there's Phillips screws to take out, which are incredibly tiny and easy to lose.

At this point, the internals should have slid out nicely, but they were stuck fast. With a combination of screwdrivers, sweat, and swearing, I was finally able to push everything out through the top of the case. So far, so good.

The Battery
Nanos are famous for the "black spot" where the old battery swells up like a spicy pillow and jams itself against the metal shell. Despite the effort required to slide the guts out, my battery was actually nice and flat, just as it should be.

A healthy lithium-ion battery should have a nominal voltage of 3.7V DC (or about 4.2V DC fully charged), but a check with my multimeter showed zero volts. Literally zero. Not a complete surprise given the length of time without a recharge, but it confirmed just how dead the battery truly was.

The Crossroads
At this point, the Nano was looking like a tech autopsy. I had to decide whether to move forward, buy a replacement battery, and chance a successful repair. That would involve some very delicate soldering to attach the new battery and the tiny ribbon cables to the motherboard, then somehow shoehorning everything back into the case.

I decided to cut my losses and just put it back together and keep it as a curiosity piece. I’m happy with the result. If I were to do it again, I’d use invisible tape to hold the screen in place.

Back into the junk drawer it goes, ready to amaze future generations :)