These are all phenomenal posts; way to take the lead on making this modification on the Nano to a more accessible level.
The reason Vinnie decided to not offer the Nano in the iMod series was because of the additional disassembly steps (as compared to the larger player). This would have made the mod too labor intensive (and more risky) for a suitable price structure. Plus, there is extra labor involved in creating a pigtail that houses the two capacitors.
Some things to keep in mind when you exit the player body with the line out lines are strain relief, protection of the lines from the metal where the casing is cut (grommet, bushing, etc.), and to a lesser extent, the style of amp you'll be using. If something like the Headamp AE-2 for RCA in, you'll need to tack the pigtail to the body so that it's solidly anchored to the top of the player, toward the power switch. If for the Hornet, Tomahawk, or Pico, tacked to the bottom; towards the doc. Bottom line is that unless you are ready to glue the Nano to the amp, they will separate at the wrong time and add undue strain on a fragile connection. This is why the pigtail should be solidly attached to the casing in a few spots along its length. This is all assuming you'll be using the combo as a portable stack (primary reason for the tiny size).
Look forward to reading about the progression of this great mod,
Dave
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Here is picture of my first try. I was using #26AWG OFC Mogami wires. They are more flexible then #24 Cardas. The pads broke off so easy that I though that it was bad join. Then I filed off corner of the chip and soldered directly to the legs – same story. The wires too stiff and heavy.
But I want you to look at the ribbon cable receptacle.
The G (red dot) is were you connect the ground wire. It’s the first pin on the bottom right side. The only other place were I found analog ground were pins 29,30 on the dock connector.
The H (red dot) – hold switch pin. It’s the first pin on the top right and marked with small v. The problem is when you disconnect the ribbon cable from the main board it will lock the ipod. Apparently Apple designed it that way. So to overcome the problem and keep the ipod in unlocked position you need to make bridge between those pins. I just carefully melted plastic until the pads were cleared. The bridge is necessary because I cleared the phone jack board from all parts so the hold switch was no longer working.
You can keep the ribbon cable but then you have to glue capacitors in the corner like Red Wine did it. Here is the picture.
Next you need to cut the male receptacle from the ribbon cable and glue the same size piece of cooper board to the top of it. This “bridge” will serve as a transitional point between soft cable from the DAC chip ( I used cable from my $50 died Sony IEM ) and wire that will go to the phone jack ( I used #26AWG Mogami) . See picture below.
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Then I drilled holes in cleaned from parts PCB and mounted the capacitors and resistors with point to point soldering. Be sure to use wire tubes on capacitors legs that goes through holes because the board are multilayered and even if you don’t see the tiny traces on surface they could touch them internally! Just to be safe. I used 100 ohm resistors in series and 47Kohm to the analog ground for each channel. You could skip at list series resistors and solder BG legs to the phone jacks legs directly. Plastic tray that supports the board has holes in it. If you use wires you can solder them through the holes. To make it easier you can just file the whole thing down as I did.
Very important! Don’t forget to glue ribbon cable receptacles together.
Also be sure that the "EQ" and "sound check" settings on your ipod OFF.
So you went RWA's way and soldered the BGs straight to the HP jack, eh? Elegant stuff, vvs. I just can't believe you went ahead and destroyed part of your chip just like that. I imagine it would be a matter of microns between the chip's life and death. Seeing how both you and RWA were able to keep the caps indoors makes me want to do the same. Then I remember that I don't have a suitably portable amp at the moment, so I still want to have the option of the headphone jack. Even when I do get said amp (I'm thinking Mini3 so far), I'm not sure I'll listen solely exclusively via the amp, so the HP jack and rocket pack is here to stay unless I can figure something else out. But I'm glad you found a solution that works for you. Thanks for the photos.
BTW, what the heck is that circle in all of your photos? I can't imagine a lens doing that kind of work to an image.
I just found out I'll be getting another broken 4G click wheel, so once I fix that mother up, maybe I'll try the "clean" way.
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That's INTENSE....what would you charge fo that to be done to a Nano?
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