Changing Batteries 101

Ready?
Then let's begin.
First up...

1 THE BASIC BATTERY CHANGE

Snap or slide open the back of your remote control. Change the batteries. Replace the cover.

Skill level required: minimal.
Most challenging part is finding out where your kids have stashed the remote.

Now that you are feeling confident, let's move onto the next level.

2 THE AVERAGE BATTERY CHANGE

This will be very familiar to parents of young children who have toys.

Unscrew the back cover. Change the batteries. Replace the cover.

Skill level required:  Easy. Requires you to remember Lefty Loosie and Righty Tighty.
Then it is easy peasy.

It does, however,  require the willpower to know that the newly charged toy will be making repeated, constant, annoying noises for the immediate future.

Well done.

Feeling pretty good?

Let's move onto Advanced...
...and smite that confidence right out of you.

3 THE ADVANCED BATTERY CHANGE
(advanced being another word for impossible)

Yeah, well, apparently this would be an ipod.

The one that has a disclaimer that says changing the battery on your own will void warranty. The one where even the helpful bloke on the youtube tute pretty much says that unless you are a brain surgeon with experience in rocket science (and own a soldering iron) or a rocket scientist with experience in brain surgery (and own a soldering iron), steer clear.

Skill level required: Un-friggin-believable.

(I might say at this stage that my ipod seemed to have some weird fault and was well out of warranty and we were hoping that it was just the battery but it wasn't worth paying Apple...I mean, a service person good money to test that theory)

Hubby also had a disclaimer for me before he attempted it. Don't blame him if it all went to hell in a handbasket.

To cut a long story short, he got quite a long way before things started to go wrong.

He even managed to not lose the tiny, tiny spring that the video tute adamently recommended not losing.

(Well, he didn't lose it until he put it on his desk and then it bounced and hasn't been seen since)

Then bits that weren't meant to be bent were being bent and pieces that were meant to be separated were not being separated without brute force
and, well, that "hell in a handbasket" disclaimer suddenly came into its own.



Look closely at this above photograph.

The white square sitting just under the back casing is the battery.

Funnily enough, the battery is at the back of the ipod,
 and if you could just remove the back panel (as in level 1 or 2 shown above),
a University degree would not be needed to change it. 

It may well be that a PR person from Apple or a techno-head can come along and give me a good reason
(and by good I mean apart from revenue raising) that changing the battery in an ipod requires a complete dissection...by a professional...at a cost to the ipod owner.

But I doubt it.