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iPod Need help making "Frankenpod"

A

aerlenbach

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 8, 2011
16
0
I have a 10 GB 1st generation iPod. The one where the spin wheel really spins. It still works, except the battery is basically useless, and non of my computers have a firewire port that old.
What I want to do is "upgrade" it, by taking parts from a newer iPod, and integrate it inside of the old iPod. I want to use the iPod nano 4th generation, install the screen, and the innards in the old iPod, and make it so it looks the same from the outside, but runs like the iPod nano. I want the wheel and buttons to still work, and the headphone jack.

I'm willing to do anything and everything to make this idea a reality. Please, can anyone help me? Thank you very much.

-Æ
 
That's simply not possible to do. The screens aren't the same shape, the scroll wheel wouldn't work with the nano's guts, and the switches and ports wouldn't line up on the logic board. I think about the best you can do is get a new HDD and battery, and then figure out the software issues from there.
 
Would it be possible to do if I used any of the newer iPods? I just want a better quality screen if I can't have the features of a new iPod.
 
Not likely. A new screen would require a different version of the OS, and that would require a new logic board, which may or may not fit, and certainly wouldn't work with the mechanical wheel.
 
And you don't think there's any possible way to make the scroll wheel work with a newer OS?
 
Most Apple computers have firewire 800. It can be used with Firewire 400 in the old iPod.

2 things you can do
- replace battery
- replace drive to CF card or similar flash memory card
 
I've never reverse-engineered firmware before, but I'm willing to try.

How would I go about changing the iPod from having a hard drive to having flash memory?
 
From what I've gathered at the University that I attend, the biggest problem that I would have is to make the operating system from the new iPod work with the scroll wheel and have it function properly. Do you think it is possible to have the scroll wheel work with a newer OS?

Alternatively, if I can't create this Frankenpod, does anybody know if this iPod 1st gen would work with iTunes 10.1.2? and if it can't, does anyone know how I could make it work?
 
Haa!!!

That would be a 5G ipod inside the case and one of those dock adapter to USB link and with a home made fake firewire to usb cable.

Still have to figure out a mechanical link between the original clickwheel and 5G's one.

Then we have a scroll wheel iPod with color VDO :eek:
Off to ebay for the parts.......

Thanks for a great idea.
 
psjj said:
Then we have a scroll wheel iPod with color VDO :eek:
Click to expand...

That's my dream, but it sounds like it would be impossible. If the iPod still works on iTunes, I think I'm just gonna get a converter and some replacement parts and upgrade the SOB.
 
take everything out just incase the new ipod with the shell of the old one

I'd rather be pushing flowers then be in the Pen sharing showers.
 
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