re4mat
Well-known member
I'd been sitting on this install for around a year for no good reason at all. Last year I purchased an iFlash Solo and 4th Gen iPod Converter for my 20GB 4th Gen iPod. (They now have an iFlash with the converter built-in, but at the time I bought my kit it wasn't available.) Well, last night I finally got around to installing it, and it works great!
By far the hardest part was just getting the iPod open in the first place! I only had a crappy spudger with me as part of my travel kit (yes, I travel with a spudger
) and it took me around 30 minutes just to free the front face.
But I got it open! You gotta be careful, though, because there's a data cable still connected to a little board that has the headphone jack and lock switch. So just open it like a book and there you go!
After disconnecting the data cable, the next step was pulling out the hard drive. I used the spudger to gently push against the plug, being careful to not stress the ribbon. As you can see, this is not the first time this iPod has been opened! The replacement battery has been decent so far, usually giving me about 4 hours or so of playback. I'm hoping that life goes up now that it's using flash storage.
The next step was to prepare the iPod 4G Converter, which is a rigid ribbon cable and plug that you have to bend in two spots. I was a little wary about bending it too hard and breaking something, but it ended up being okay. In this shot you can also see the crappy spudger I used during this project. Oh how I wish I'd had my iFixit kit with me!
With the Converter ribbon bent and inserted into the iFlash, I popped in my SD card. I used a 128GB SanDisk Ultra SDXC UHS-1 Class 10 card that's rated for 80MB/s. I figured a faster one wouldn't be too advantageous, as the iPod only has an ATA-66 bus. I didn't format the card or anything, figuring that would be done by iTunes during setup.
The next step was, of course, to plug in the board! This part was a little fiddly with the adapter card, but pretty straightforward. Once in place, I attached the two included foam pads to the top of the SD slot, which helps keep the board from rattling around inside the iPod. Then I reconnected the data cable for the headphone jack/lock switch, and then folded it back over. But I didn't completely close it back up yet! Plugging in the iPod cable, it was moment-of-truth time: would iTunes detect it?
Success! iTunes recognised it right away, and after a quick setup process I was copying music and audiobooks over to it! Overall, the device is pretty snappy. Startup and wake up are significantly faster, and the iPod is noticeably lighter. Everything seems to be working just fine, and I'm pretty happy with it! Not bad for a $40 kit! My only real beef with it is the fact that they glob-topped the IC on the board. I get why they did it, but it still always annoys me when manufacturers do that. Either way, though, I would definitely recommend this kit for anyone looking to spruce up their dusty old iPod.
By far the hardest part was just getting the iPod open in the first place! I only had a crappy spudger with me as part of my travel kit (yes, I travel with a spudger
) and it took me around 30 minutes just to free the front face.But I got it open! You gotta be careful, though, because there's a data cable still connected to a little board that has the headphone jack and lock switch. So just open it like a book and there you go!
After disconnecting the data cable, the next step was pulling out the hard drive. I used the spudger to gently push against the plug, being careful to not stress the ribbon. As you can see, this is not the first time this iPod has been opened! The replacement battery has been decent so far, usually giving me about 4 hours or so of playback. I'm hoping that life goes up now that it's using flash storage.
The next step was to prepare the iPod 4G Converter, which is a rigid ribbon cable and plug that you have to bend in two spots. I was a little wary about bending it too hard and breaking something, but it ended up being okay. In this shot you can also see the crappy spudger I used during this project. Oh how I wish I'd had my iFixit kit with me!
With the Converter ribbon bent and inserted into the iFlash, I popped in my SD card. I used a 128GB SanDisk Ultra SDXC UHS-1 Class 10 card that's rated for 80MB/s. I figured a faster one wouldn't be too advantageous, as the iPod only has an ATA-66 bus. I didn't format the card or anything, figuring that would be done by iTunes during setup.
The next step was, of course, to plug in the board! This part was a little fiddly with the adapter card, but pretty straightforward. Once in place, I attached the two included foam pads to the top of the SD slot, which helps keep the board from rattling around inside the iPod. Then I reconnected the data cable for the headphone jack/lock switch, and then folded it back over. But I didn't completely close it back up yet! Plugging in the iPod cable, it was moment-of-truth time: would iTunes detect it?
Success! iTunes recognised it right away, and after a quick setup process I was copying music and audiobooks over to it! Overall, the device is pretty snappy. Startup and wake up are significantly faster, and the iPod is noticeably lighter. Everything seems to be working just fine, and I'm pretty happy with it! Not bad for a $40 kit! My only real beef with it is the fact that they glob-topped the IC on the board. I get why they did it, but it still always annoys me when manufacturers do that. Either way, though, I would definitely recommend this kit for anyone looking to spruce up their dusty old iPod.
