Sunday, November 29, 2009

DIY: Replacing Nike Plus iPod Sensor Battery

I fell in love on the very first time I used my Nike+ Sport Kit. Great device, simple, easy to use, very cool web portal.



The only thing that annoys me is the fact Apple made replacing its battery an almost impossible task. It is not a big deal if you live in the US where a new kit or just the sensor are fairly cheap. But, if you live abroad like I do, it might cost a lot of money. For instance, in Brazil, a new Nike+ iPod Kit costs a lot more, due importing taxes and currency exchange rate. Steel, a battery costs much less than the kit itself.

Luckily, I found this post explaining how to open and replace sensor's battery. My post is solely to endorse those instructions and share my personal experience while doing so.

1. Opening: by far the hardest step. The instructions I mentioned above does not emphasize how hard and tricky this step is. I used a very sharp knife and after half an hour and a lot of patient, I was able to open it up.This guy used a very hand sawing tool. Either way, you've got to be careful. If you go too deep, you may ruin its internals circuit.

2. Removing the battery. At very first moment, I thought it was some sort of special battery as I could see 4 wires coming out. But it is not - the thing on the top of the battery is just a component you have to take off of the battery's surface. Using a sharp knife, I removed some the plastic protection. As the instructions I mentioned above says, a plier might be handy in order to remove terminals from the battery (they are soldered):



Sensor uses a regular watch's battery (model ref. is CR2032) which provides 3v. I didn't have one sitting around and I would have to drive to the nearest store. I ended up wiring up two piles together so I could test whether the battery was actually the reason why the sensor was not working anymore.



And it worked like a charm.

UPDATE

3. Placing a new battery and closing sensor up: I just bought a new battery. I removed old metal terminals and soldered directly to the battery:





4. Closing the cover: Just place everything in nicely and carefully. I used some electric tape in order to avoid accidental short circuits.



Instead of glueing it together again, I used some electric tape to put the closer caps together. That makes my life a lot easier next time I need to replace the battery.