Technologist Ken Pillonel has already made a $38 part for making the AirPods Pro case self-serviceable and support USB-C, and adding Apple’s Lightning port to a Samsung Galaxy A51, and modded an iPhone to use USB-C. No, Pillonel has made an AirPods Pro case with a user-replaceable battery, USB-C port, and an open source design.
Scharon Harding for Ars Technica:
Pillonel’s take on the AirPods Pro case, which is detailed on his YouTube channel Exploring Simulation, included him modeling each case component and putting the case together with screws and nuts, “making them easily swappable and repairable,” according to Pillonel’s press release.
In an email, Pillonel told Ars Technica that his design’s most repairable feature is the lack of glue.
“The main difficulty with the original case is removing what I call the ‘outer shell,’ so the [shiny] white outer plastic. Most people end up permanently deforming it because it’s just basically a ball of glue,” he said.
There is a small amount of glue in his own design, though, Pillonel told The Verge. It’s used to keep some magnets put, but it’s “cyanoacrylate glue that can easily be removed by soaking it with acetone, unlike Apple’s green glue, which feels like concrete.”
By ditching most of the glue, it should be easier to open the case when it needs a new battery…
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