Useful Stuff to have:
Set of small flathead and phillips screwdrivers.
A few small secure boxes.
A Large working space: helps when you drop a screw.
A knife with a broad blade.
Pair of tweezers.
Optionally a small sharp knife/penknife
Replacing the battery
Methods
There are two methods for changing the battery: one involves Switching the polarity by changing the wires at the molex plug, the other is to cut and then splice or solder the wires. Although splicing or soldering avoids completly disassembling the unit but there is alot more to go wrong. If you are completly happy with performing such procedures on such thin wires then it may be worthwhile but i cant recomend it.
This guide describes how to do it the first way.
Step 1 - removing the H300's back case
First, you need to remove the five screws from around the sides of the unit, There are two at the bottom and one on each of the other sides. The ones at the bottom are longer than the others so when it comes to rebuilding the unit remember where they go.
After that the back of the case can be pulled off by hand. If it wont move then wedge a knife under it at one edge and lift it off.
Do not attempt to remove the front now, it will not budge.
Step 2 - removing the hard drive and padding
Now that the back case is off you should see the battery, carefully move it to one side (it will still be attached).
Next, remove the metal piece ringed in red by simply pulling it upwards:
Then remove the blue padding covering the hard drive (it may feel like it is stuck on but should peel off easily).
The hard drive can be removed by gently lifting it up and pulling it in the direction of the red arrow (away from the pins that connect it):
Sorry about the image quality on this one.
Place the hard drive somewhere safe and remove the next piece of blue padding.
Step 3 - Removing the front case of the iriver
You should now be able to see the circuit board of the h300. There are eight screws holding the front case to the rest of the unit, these must all be removed.
This photo shows where they all are. Be very careful not to forget the one behind the hard drive connector. The 'hidden' screw also holds a piece of metal in place, put that with the screws.
This part is where some tweezers come in handy. Use them to remove the screws from the board once they are unscrewed.
Once all the screws are out the front can be pulled off in the same way as the back but to help get it off do the following:
Push a small flat head screwdriver down between the black plastic making up the side of the case and the metal prongs which the screws on the side screw into:
Keep pushing until the side part separates like so:
Repeat this on the other side of the case. The front should now come off easily.
Step 4 - detaching the old battery
You should now see this:
The molex is highlighted.
To remove the molex I find the following method the easiest:
Look through the back of the case so that you can see the bottom of the molex plug. The carefully align a flathead screwdriver up with the bottom of the molex plug like so:
Next, try to get the player into the position shown in the next photo. This can be fiddly.
Move the screwdriver in the directions of the arrows, but don't press upwards to hard. The molex plug should pull out quite easily.
Step 5 - Reversing the polarity on your new battery NOTE: this is for ipod replacement batteries only. If you have an Ionity battery, now highly unlikely becuase ionity is in insolvency, you can skip this step. If you are unsure of your batteries polarity then using a multimetre to check it against the original is advisable.
This is the fiddliest bit of the whole process.
Before you begin it is a good idea to note which wire goes into which side of the molex.
The wires are held in the plug by two plastic prongs which can be seen in this photo:
To remove the wires from the plug, use a very small flathead screwdriver or knife to gently lift up one of the prongs:
Alternatively you can use a small sharp knife to do this. This may be better than using a screwdriver. Some have reported that the metal sheath at the end of the wires can be pulled off when using a screwdriver but this has never happened to me.
Once you have a situation like the one in the picture the wire under that prong can be easily pulled out.
Be very carefull not to short the wires when you are doing this. Shorting the battery can damage it
Repeat this with the other wire and simply push the wires into the opposite holes they were in befor. Make sure you put them in the right holes (the note made earlier helps), because as simple as it sounds I got mixed up once.
Thread the molex and wires through the back of the case and plug the molex back into its socket. Just carefully push it in.
Step 6 - Rebuilding
You may want to add an inskin to the player now as the case is easily accessible.
The first thing to check is that you have left no dust or fingerprints on the LCD or the inside of the front case's screen. Its very frustrating if you put the unit back together and the display is dirty.
Push the front case onto the player untill it clicks in place. Turn the player over and replace the screws to the circuitboard. Tweezers help alot when doing this. Dont forget to replace the small piece of metal removed from behind the hard drive connector in step 3.
Replace the bottom piece of padding, then plug the hard drive back in. The HDD should fit snugly into the bottom piece of padding.
Replace the topmost padding and the metal piece shown in step 2 - photo
Most batteries will fit into the remaining space without much trouble, there should never be any need to leave out the blue padding. You can/should remove the black sponge padding from the inside of the back case.
If needed the metal protrusions inside the back case can be sanded down - photo
This is not needed but it helped a little.
Next, Fit the battery into the back part of the case and line it up as if you are going to replace the back. Make sure that the wires from the battery are tucked down the side of the hard drive so they wont be squashed. Push the case back on.
It is unlikely it will fit as easily as with the old battery but if you gently squeeze the case closed when you are replacing the screws around the side of the case it should be fine. Remember to put the long screws into the bottom of the unit.
Finally, turn your modded iriver on and enjoy.
Side effects of battery replacement
> Longer charge time. The battery should take longer to charge but in some instances it can take excessively long. If the battery has been charging for over 4h 30min (from flat) then try turning the unit on and off(while its still plugged in) and the iriver firmware will usually display the 'complete!' message. It is unclear wether this damages the battery but mine is still going strong after a year and its allways been like this.
> Hard drive noises / 'Check HDD conection' message. These can be caused by the battery putting pressure on the hard drive. This happened to me and all i did was open up the unit and shift the battery a little. Constant dropping had somehow moved the battery.
This will also be caused if the battery balloons. This can occur with faulty batteries and any batteries that do this should be dissconected and thrown away, do not pierce them.
Source of info on this problem and others
> Warming up during charging. The batteries can produce alot of warmth when in the initial stages of charging (from flat) this is normal, although the unit should not get hot.
For Rockbox Users
You will need to change the cappacity of the battery in rockbox once the new
battery is fitted. (General Settings > System > Battery Capacity) This
is so that the time remaining can be calculated correctly.
If you need any more info or have a question PM me.
*DISCLAIMER* I accept no repsonsibility for people damaging their irivers whilst
carrying out the proccess above.
