iPod Mini Taptic Engine Mod Tutorial
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- čas přidán 2. 08. 2024
- Edit: It's come to my attention that several businesses have started selling Taptic mod kits for iPods and linking to my videos as installation guides. Please note that I am not affiliated with or employed by any of these sellers and cannot provide tech support for their products or assistance with sales, shipping, or refunds. If you were directed here by such a product and need help, please contact the seller you purchased your kit from. Thank you!
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Last time we stuck a Taptic Engine inside an iPod 4th gen, today we'll do the same with an iPod Mini! This tutorial will work on both iPod Mini 1st generation (2004) as well as 2nd generation (2005).
Materials needed:
- iPod Mini (1st or 2nd generation)
- iPhone 7 Taptic Engine (iPhone 8 - iPhone 11 Taptic Engines will also work)
- Type I CompactFlash card or CompactFlash to SD adaptor with SD card
- Wire
- Solder
Index:
00:00 - Introduction
00:52 - Opening up the iPod
06:40 - Preparing the Taptic Engine
08:46 - Preparing the board
10:06 - Installing the Taptic Engine
10:42 - Putting it all together
12:30 - Closing it all up
14:17 - Testing the setup
14:38 - Finishing touches
16:10 - Closing remarks
iPod Modding Discord:
/ discord
iPod Haven Discord:
/ discord - Věda a technologie
Update: It's come to my attention that several businesses have started selling Taptic mod kits for iPods and linking to my videos as installation guides. Please note that I am not affiliated with or employed by any of these sellers and cannot provide tech support for their products or assistance with sales, shipping, or refunds. If you were directed here by such a product and need help, please contact the seller you purchased your kit from. Thank you!
the on-beat removal of the clicker was satisfying...
"gently peel"
*demonic crunchy noises of death*
"Gently but firmly peel away, ignoring the iPod Mini's piercing screams of pain and terror as it is being torn apart alive. And now for the speaker..."
theres alot of videos on disassembling an ipod mini.. yours automatically wins because of the diagram you made for proper click wheel connector removal
You can use a hair dryer on the top and bottom caps to loosen the glue!
3:22
THIS IS SO IMPORTANT.
I have broken 2 clickwheels that way.
yep, found out TWICE the hard way. but i was lucky i could re-solder the connection
the minis (ideally gen2) are highly moddable, i've done a few, chromed cases, (re-coloured or bare polished) re-anodised cases, clickwheel and centre button swap from 5th or 6th gen classic (requires some filing), led backlight colour change for MADE IN THAILAND lcd displays, recolour the PVC endcaps with upholstery vinyl spray dye .. there's lots you can do .. remove the end caps without case damage by hot gluing a cable tie to them in two places, practical memory limit is 128gb, as there is a limit to the amount of songs they can keep track of .. maybe 20,000 or so, can't quite remember
clickwheel mod .. how-to
1) remove the 4 rear clickwheel screws, and disassemble as much as you can without pulling apart any glued components ... put both black and white glued-together clickwheel assemblies in a small container of methylated spirits for 1/2 an hour ... isopropyl alcohol would also probably work ... this will loosen the glue used to attach the plastics to the circuit board which tracks the finger movements
2) the black plastic outer has some protruding tabs on its underside which i removed with a sharp blade, they were used to align the plastic with the finger-track circuit board
3) from memory, i think i used a hand held spherical-looking grindstone to remove some material around the inside hole of the underside of the black plastic clickwheel .... do by hand, not with a machine, and slowly; i think i recall also using a flat blade around the inner bottom of the black clickwheel which stops the button rotating, as that portion interfered with the mini's finger-track circuit board
4) the inner clickwheel button also needs trimming with a small file, removing the 4 anti-rotation tabs on its circumference, and i think i sanded both it's bottom surface and circurmference; 5th gen are flat plastic, 6th gen are dished aluminium
5) removing the tabs as in #4 will cause the inner button to be able to rotate, so get the white button, sand the domed top surface off until it is quite thin, and glue that to the underside of the 'black' button, the tabs on the underside of the old white button will then locate into the mini assembly
6) everything needs to be fitted so the centre push button works correctly, but without any slop; so take your time, it is easy to remove too much plastic, too quickly ... put some tape over the clickwheel when re-inserting into the case, to stop it being scratched if the black click wheel is affixed to the finger-track circuit board, or better still, cut up a square of thin flat plastic sheet (like you find on a plastic blister pack), a bit bigger than the click wheel a put it above the clickwheel plastic, and slide it out after inserting the assembly into the case
7) you can get some special ipod clickwheel 3M adhesive pads from ebay to affix the black plastic to the finger wheel circuit board which is what i did, but double sided tape or easily dissolvable glue would work as well ... don't use water based glue ... take your time getting the alignment correct; the 3M pads only give you one chance
8) painting the white plastic end caps requires vinyl paint, like you get in an auto-parts store for car upholstery ** ... i used a mini-airbrush to apply it, but spraying straight from the aerosol can would probably work too ... don't worry if it looks like you applied too much paint ... just let it dry ... vinyl paint is very forgiving in its application, and is great for other plastic types as well, and is the only thing that will stick to PVC plastic, and remain scratch resistant .. the high level of strong solvent in the vinyl paint melts the surface of the plastic, etching it, for a good bond ... enamel paint will not stick well and can create a thick layer which can interfere with the tight tolerances apple uses... clean the white end caps with methylated spirits or isopropoyl alcohol before painting
**
I went thru the drama of painting pvc, and auto/car upholstery paint was the best and most scratch resistant I found ... the black is mainly carbon black and MEK (methyl ethyl ketone) and butane propellant... MEK is a very strong and nasty solvent, and also the most active ingredient of pvc pipe primer ... it will "melt" the top layer of pvc allowing the pigment to bond. It is also great for acyrlic (perspex) and ABS plastics, and doesn't really effect dimensional tolerances
9) to remove the endcaps without damage, i drop one or two blobs of hot melt glue onto them (without the hot melt gun metal tip touching and hence melting the end cap), and press a cable tie into the hot glue, when the glue is cold and hard, pull on the cable tie to remove the endcap, then remove the glue by twisting the cable tie, and any remaining glue with your fingernail
10) black clickwheel and silver button looks good on a silver case, you can get brand new, cases on ebay .. they dont have the apple branding, disksize logo or other text, as those are probably laser-ed on after anodizing, and the text can come in different languages, it will make you mini look like a macbook .... re-anodizing is quite an involved process, you need sulphuric/sulfuric (car battery) acid, a controllable powersupply, and optionally, some water soluble pigment dye ; strip old anodizing with phosphoric acid which you can find as clear-as-water 'rust remover' at a hardware store -- it can take a day or two if the concentration you are using is like 33% ... chroming requires the stripped and polished case to be 'zincated' for the underlying copper plating to adhere to the aluminium
11) there are spare clickwheel assemblies on ebay
12) the backlight mod will only work on one of the two types of display the gen2-MINI used, the moddable ones are marked "made in thailand" ... i haven't tried modding a gen1 display
ipod mini's firmware database is limited to indexing less than 25,000 songs,.. so practical limits are 128gb for lossy/compressed music, 256gb for losssless, unless your 'songs' are entire breakless albums, symphonies or podcasts or you want a portable usb2 harddrive.
my car stereo is a 2008 becker 7990 with separate accessory becker ipod controller adapter and happily supports an ipod mini equipped with an 128gb udma cf card made by KingSpec, which is 60% full and has 10,000+ lossy songs on it. prior to the becker, that car had a 2006 model JVC headunit with separate JVC ipod controller, but controlling the ipod thru the interface was too complex for me, the becker interface is much simpler, and now these long discontinued made-in-germany headunits and becker controllers are worth more than when new and are VERY sort after.
most modern car stereos dont support ipod minis as the remote control protocol changed over the years, my other car has an ipod touch 3rdGen as its remote controlled music source, its 2014 kenwood stereo headunit with inbuilt ipod remote control (no separate controller box) and rear usb connector couldnt see or control the ipod mini.
so if your car stereo headunit is relatively modern, and controls your ipod via inbuilt usb .. check compatibilty carefully in the manufacturer's manual, remote control of the mini's probably wont be supported, and you'll be stuck using a 3.5mm audio cable between the mini's headphone jack, and headunit's AUXillary input with control via the mini's click wheel only or remote equipped headphone cable or mini-specific accessory wireless controller such as a period correct "Griffin Airclick Mini Remote"
Wow almost the same technique I used on my iPod Mini's top caps, I use popsicle sticks with hot glue. I also made a "chrome" Mini by buffing the paint off and installed a 5th gen click wheel face! Actually I think it's on my IG still.
@@highvoltage12v my chrome plated one is actually chrome plated, first the electroplater 'zincates' the chemically stripped and manually polished case, then its copper plated, then nickel plated i think, then chrome plated.
personally i like a clear anodize, which is anodized as normal on a chemically stripped then highly polished case, but not colour dyed, it will lose a bit of its sheen, but will never tarnish ... i did a couple where i used colloidal silver as the dye, but the result, whilst visible, was subtle compared to a clear anodize
i did want to try a white anodize, which some people say is impossible, but never got around to getting the right chemicals - it requires two separate 'dyeing' baths
first bath is barim acetate (made from barium carbonate and acetic acid)
second bath is sodium sulphate
they will react to form barium sulphate in the pores of the aluminium which is a white insoluble powder
batteries for these models are getting rare, i could do with half a dozen new batteries .. windows seem impossible to find, so may have to CNC cut your own from 1.6mm / 0.0625" clear plastic if cracked or crazed
@@antdavisonNZ you haven’t got a choked case you would sell have you?
Just performed this mod myself - have to say its really fun :D
The best way I found to get the top and bottom caps off the iPod mini is to hot glue a popsicle sticks to the caps and use the popsicle stick to pull them off. Then use a plastic spudger to separate the hot glue from the caps.
Does the hot glue not damage the plastic?
Nice👍
You are awesome
I am very impressed with this one as well.
I have some of these vintage iPods, I wouldn't mind to put a taptic on either 3 or 4 but I am not too good, one due to my eye sight, that is age related. I have joined the Discord group. Let me know if you are on Twitter.
Thanks.
I'd love to give this a go but I don't have a soldering iron. I've already replaced the battery and put in a 64GB SD card on both of my iPod minis. I am watching a 5.5 generation iPod on abay at the moment, and hope to add that to my collection of modded iPods.
Nice job! Just wondering if using CF card directly, if adjustments still needed...
By the way, do you think you could make a video with 1G too?
CF cards will work directly, other than trimming the tab at the bottom no further adjustments are needed. By 1G do you mean the 2001 original iPod? I've already tested the voltages of the clicker speaker of that model and there's not enough power to run a Taptic Engine.
Curious how this affects battery life? Also any other haptic motors compatible? Seems Ifixit has these parts for sale, I'm gonna do this. Also crazy how the taptic engine sound just like the original speaker in the video.
Update: I did it, it worked. I'm pleased. Thanks for the tutorial and the idea!
The Taptic Engine doesn't have any noticeable effect on battery life, it should draw the same power as the original clicker. Any linear actuator that runs on 3V voltage should also work (I've tested the HD Rumble from a Nintendo Switch and it works too, but it doesn't fit the iPod casing).
@@NekoMichi Thanks for answering. I ordered an iPhone 7 taptic engine. It seems like a useful mod as I can't hear the speaker click when listening to music and some sort of feed back from the wheel is really nice to have. Really don't like the click in headphones setting though. Nice idea 👍
I really want to do this mod! Your video is very in depth and fantastic. Do you know what gauge wire you used? Thanks
I don't know what gauge wire I used, but it was about 1mm in diameter.
@@NekoMichi Ok, was that the diameter of the wire or the plastic casing housing the wire
@@Parris2000 That includes the thickness of the plastic layer.
@@NekoMichi Thank you so much!
Could you possibly do a video on the custom click wheels for the minis?
A friend of mine produced a series of tutorial videos on CZcams about replacing the iPod Mini Click Wheel's front plastic cover with custom colours but I can't find the links any more. I'll let you know if I find them later.
@@NekoMichi Soinds good!! Thank you!!
Hi there😊I’m woundering if the iPod case has enough thick for the Taptic Engine ，maybe I can add a Bluetooth on it
I haven't tried combining the Taptic mod with Bluetooth, so I don't know for sure. It's unlikely there's enough space inside.
Just watched your vid after buying 2nd gen Mini for me, which I intend to mod (flash memory + new battery). This looks awesome and I'd like to perform the mod myself, but I am afraid of my soldering skills.
One question about 8:48 - the clicker connection. you removed it, then soldered the taptic engine cables on them, but never added it back. Is it supposed to be like that and clicker component is replaced with Taptic engine?
Yes, it was intentionally replaced.
Owo taptic time
I know you said that you've tried taptic engines from other iPhones, but what about the one from say, a 1st gen apple watch? Can't seem to find any info online in whether it has the same debug pins as the 7's
I've tried the Taptic Engine from a Series 2 Apple Watch and it worked. Older generation Apple Watch Taptic Engines have simple 2-pin connectors that you can just solder wires onto, but the Series 4 and newer switched to lego-style connectors that I don't know the pinout to and I'm unsure if they also have the diagnostic pins on the side.
Looking at iFixit's photos, I see a conspicuous section of tape covering part of the Apple Watch Taptic Engine's ribbon cable that looks a lot like what we have on iPhone Taptic Engines and I suspect that's where the diagnostic port is, but without an actual unit for me to test I can't say for sure.
I have a series 1 that I'm itching to crack open so if/when I do, I'll report my findings
Looking forward to your findings!
sorry if you mentioned it in the vid, but how'd you make that custom black click wheel? that looks awesome and i'd love to do that!
The Click Wheel plastic is glued on and can be peeled off carefully. I swapped in a black piece extracted from a 5th gen iPod Classic Click Wheel.
@@NekoMichiHey, mind me asking, when adding the 5th gen click wheel do you need to glue it? if so there’s anything we should keep in mind as not to ruin the contact points of it. Thanks :)
@firewhite I just used double-sided tape.
@@NekoMichi oh alright thank you! i’m gonna order a replacement and give it a shot!
Does the feel of that taptic engine feels nice like on iphone? How big is the sound compare to the original speaker? Thanks
It feels similar to in an iPhone, the sound is quieter than the original clicker.
@@NekoMichi Oh cool thanks! Also how did you made the software to have the taptic words in the clicker setting?
I used iPodWizard to change the text in the firmware.
how did you make the black clickwheel on the other mini you have?
I removed the original plastic cover (it's attached with glue to the touch sensor circuit) and then replaced it with the black plastic cover extracted from an iPod 5th generation. The centre button was recycled from an iPod Classic 6th generation.
michael, detailed how-to in my reply to my own comment of 2021-december-06/07
This video is awesome! Is there any chance of getting this mod working on the 3rd gen classic? I'm hoping to put a taptic engine in my own
Unfortunately the iPod 1st, 2nd, and 3rd gen use a different model of piezo clicker to the rest of the series and I've tried testing a Taptic Engine against them but it never worked. Not sure if it's because they use different pinouts or different voltages or both.
@@NekoMichi Ahhh, I see. Do you know what voltage the 4th gen piezo uses?
Approximately 3V, I think.
@@NekoMichi I found the pinout of the 3rd gen clicker through wayback machine, quickly chucked a taptic on it and it works, she's tapping
That's great news! I guess the pads on my test device may have been damaged 🤔
Are these aliexpress cf sd adapters actually reliable once you got them running? I can't decide to go for these or iflash's (they are pretty expensive)
They can be hit-and-miss. From what I've heard, the most unreliable ones are the red generic unbranded adaptors because they have an onboard firmware that doesn't play nice with iPods (although some people have been able to flash them with a working firmware somehow). The CF to SD adaptors sold by iFlash are actually just rebranded AliExpress adaptors, but from a different manufacturer. I think they're based on the Digigear CF to SD adaptor, which is one of the more reliable brands for iPod modding.
I've seen Digigear adaptors occasionally appear on Amazon or other local marketplace sites.
@@NekoMichi Nice thank you good to know. I might check for the Digigear or that what you are using then
Is there a way to do this with a iphone 6s og taptic engine motor? I dont have a newer one.
I've tested with the 6S Taptic Engine before, but the haptic output wasn't good.
@@NekoMichi oh ok, thanks for the feedback!
how I put a Taptic Engine into iPod nano2
There isn't enough space to fit a Taptic Engine inside a second generation iPod Nano, unfortunately. I think the actual Taptic Engine module is thicker than the entire iPod!
Will an iphone 6-6s taptic work?
It won't, must be iPhone 7 or newer
hi! how did you put the click wheel from classic on mini?
I separated the plastic cover from the circuitry by using isopropyl alcohol to dissolve the adhesive, then used a file to trim down the back and make sure it's flat. The 5th gen wheel has the same diameter as the Mini so there's no need to file down the outside, I just attached it to the Mini wheel's ribbon with double-sided tape. The centre button is from a silver 6th gen Classic, with a slightly filed down underside.
@@NekoMichi thank you. i will try to find pink classic center button, i’ve seen only purple unfortunately
@@NekoMichi can i use a clickwheel part from classic? or i need it from video only
Both 5th gen and newer Classic models should be fine, so long as you properly extract the plastic cover and transfer it to the iPod Mini's Click Wheel.
Is the whole voiceover done in real time?
Mostly, the introduction and outro voiceovers were recorded after the video but the iPod disassembly and assembly voiceovers were recorded in real-time.
Is this mod possible using an iflash cf adapter?
Yes, it should work.
@@NekoMichi Do you need to trim that one as well?
I haven't used the iFlash-branded CF to SD adaptors before so I don't know if it has that ridge at the end. If it does, then it'll need trimming.
okay now show me how to taptic mod my attack helicopter
First you grab an opening tool and disconnect the rotor contacts...
@@NekoMichi done 👍
Michi, what wires do I buy?
The wires I used were around 0.5mm in thickness (approx. 24 gauge).
Ah yes, but what kind of wires?
I just used whatever I had lying around, I don't remember what exact make or model product was used. However, I know that some people have taken apart USB or headphone cables and reused the internal wiring for this type of project.
Thanks Michi! Also, what tape do you use?
I use standard electrical tape. Any type of tape will work so long as it's not conductive.
Why even do this?