Glo HD Glo HD in 2018 and Beyond - Documenting Refurbishment

[rcodi]

Intro
---------------------------------------------
Hello fellow Kobo fanatics, I've joined the club with a Kobo Glo HD. I've had my eye on this particular device for a while because I believe it's the ideal long term reader in regards to specs and maintainability (at least for the time being). The interior layout is excellent in regards to future maintenance due to inevitable failures of the two critical components: the battery and internal storage. As you may have deduced I have a preference for selecting devices based on long term maintainability, I have a "buy it for life" philosophy where applicable.

eReader backstory: I previously used a Kindle Keyboard that I've owned with the official lighted cover since release year. It's a tank of a device in addition to having an easy to replace battery (pop cover, two screws) but the rest of the device leaves a bit to be desired in regards to modern amenities (storage, size, backlight, ppi) hence the upgrade.

I'll be keeping a running album of full resolution images here, images used in this post will be resized as per forum guidelines.

Maintainability & Disassembly Review
---------------------------------------------

Stock internals, not for long though!



Access to the internals is very easy, just pry from the seam on any of the edges on around the rubberized back panel. I prefer to start at the top center then popping both sides. After that you should be able to slowing pull the panel away at an slight angle to release the rest of the clips.

The battery is a simple two wire setup with a tiny board connector. Replacements are still readily available at the time of writing, check the battery section below for specifics including the model. I emphasize the two wire setup because in the future there's a good chance batteries of the same size and connector will be difficult or impossible to find when the current replacements are out of production. When this happens you can just find a similar size and voltage hobby battery and splice the old connector onto it. Traditional power and ground (red and black) wiring is preferred versus contact based pin connectors for this very reason.

Obviously the microSD slot is as friendly as it gets, just a standard non-spring loaded slot mounted internally. I will be updating this post with clear images of the internals and consolidating information/files required for both battery and SD card replacement here.

The motherboard comes out easily by removing the washer-head screws at each corner in addition to the display/touch connectors at the bottom. As an added bonus if your sleep button ever has issues check the solder joints that hold it to the board, mine came hanging off and when I pulled the board up one of the joints was broken! This is a simple fix, just throw some flux on the joint and add a small amount of solder to reconnect and reinforce the button for the future.

The display is a multiple component package that is held around the border of the plastic bezel with a fairly strong adhesive. My method to pull it apart was to press two thumbs into the display while gripping the bezel around the edges until I had enough leverage to peel apart safely. The plastic backplate seems to be held with a strong enough adhesive that I couldn't pry it apart safely.

Now may be thinking: It's not even waterproof! This is true although I rank this low on the list of disasters likely to befall my device considering the sheltered life it will live. I do, however, intend to take a preventive measure for this while inside. I have applied conformal coating to all surface mounted components on the board to stop/slow any possible splash damage or corrosion it could possibly incur. It's very simple to apply with a brush usually integrated into the container, just give it a bit to dry and do it in a well ventilated area or outside. This excludes contact pins i.e. battery connector, SD card slot, display and touch panel connectors, micro usb slot. The conformal coating I use adds a light blue hue to the board in addition to a glossy finish similar to clear coating but removable with alcohol if necessary.



Where I'll be starting:
---------------------------------------------

• Preowned Glo HD 4GB
• New Official Sleep Cover
• Cameron Sino 1500mAh / 5.55Wh - Model: PR-285083
• Samsung EVO 128GB UHS-1 microSD Card

This is a budget friendly project so I set out to find a well cared for Glo HD for around $50 USD. After confirming that purchase I placed orders for the other items after a bit of research. Official sleep covers are still plentiful and can be found for $15 at the time of posting. The only replacement battery that seems to be readily available is made by Cameron Sino which is a brand that I trust from previous experience. The 128GB SD card was something I already had from a previous project, I was initially going to use a 32GB card but swapped it out as it's more likely to be used in the eReader than the Raspberry Pi it was in.

Note that the battery is apparently also compatible with a Nook Glowlight Plus (2015) which may help those searching in the future. I recommend searching by the model number for this reason as the seller I purchased from ($15 at time of purchase) only had it listed under the Nook.

Upgrading the SD Card
---------------------------------------------



For all methods I recommend keeping the back cover off until you verify everything is working.

Windows Method
After some research I've found that Toony's method is still the simplest way for most Windows users, I'll reiterate his instructions here with some clarifications made:

Downloads:

• USB Image Tool - Any version should work
• Minitool Partition Wizard - Free Edition

Steps:

• Insert the original SD card into your desktop
• Open USB Image Tool and press the "Backup" button in the bottom right corner
• You will be prompted for a file name and location - I recommend naming it KoboGloHD and putting it on the desktop
• Eject the original SD card and insert the new card
• Press the "Restore" button in the bottom left corner of USB Image Tool and select the KoboGloHD.img file
• At this point the SD card is restored to the same state as the original card including partition size, we'll need to resize it to take advantage of the larger card.
• Open MiniTool Partition Wizard
• Right click the FAT32 KOBOEReader Partition on the SD card and select "Extend"
• Drag the slider of the right most box all the way to the right
• Press OK and then click Apply in the top left
• Once the process completes you're ready to eject the SD card
• Insert the SD card into your Kobo and hold the power button until it boots

Linux Method
Brief Instructions by Taos

WIP - Testing different methods



A piece of Kapton tape over the SD card will ensure it stays in the slot indefinitely.




General Troubleshooting

If your Kobo isn't booting you most likely have either a bad backup or a bad write. Consider going through the steps again, and if that doesn't work consider trying a different SD reader. I can't imagine any SD card being incompatible considering I'm using a modern 128GB UHS-1 card without issues but if all else fails try another card.


Battery Replacement & Upgrades
---------------------------------------------
Haven't found a suitable upgrade, the space constraints really limit the maximum size to the stock battery which makes sense considering they made a cut out in the board for it. You could potentially dremel out some of the plastic backplate for slightly more height but finding a battery that will take advantage of the full battery compartment is going to be difficult. I'm going to deem a battery upgrade not worth it.

Replacement is as simple as slowly prying with a card until the adhesive releases. I recommend taking the motherboard out to get a good angle. Do not bend the battery too far unless you like fires.

Search for the part number instead of searching for a Kobo Glo HD battery specifically and you'll generally find more results as the battery model is the same as the Nook Glowlight Plus.


Stock Battery Information:

• Part Number: PR-285083
• Capacity: 1500 mAh
• Voltage: 3.7V
• Dimensions: 84.15 x 49.50 x 2.70 mm

To Be Continued
---------------------------------------------
I'd say as far as hardware modifications and maintenance that all reasonable paths have been explored. It's possible myself or others will come up with something to add in the future and I'll come back to update the thread.

[Atilla]

Great first post. Welcome to mobileread forums.

[koboy]

Originally Posted by rcodi

Intro
-------------------------
Hello fellow Kobo fanatics, I'll be joining you shortly as I have a Glo HD on the way. I've had my eye on this particular device for a while because I believe it's the ideal long term reader in regards to specs and maintainability (at least for the time being). The interior layout is excellent in regards to future maintenance due to inevitable failures of the two critical components: the battery and internal storage. As you may have deduced I have a preference for selecting devices based on long term maintainability, I have a "buy it for life" philosophy where applicable.

eReader backstory: I currently have a Kindle Keyboard that I've owned with the official lighted cover since release year. It's a tank of a device in addition to having an easy to replace battery (pop cover, two screws) but the rest of the device leaves a bit to be desired in regards to modern amenities (storage, size, backlight, ppi) hence the upgrade.

Maintainability Review
-------------------------
The 3.7V battery is a simple two wire setup with a connector that can be spliced or removed for a direct connection. I mention the connector splice/direct connection because in the future there's a good chance batteries of the same size and connector will be difficult or impossible to find when the current replacement are out of production. This is a nice feature to have versus the pin based connectors I've seen on other devices.

Obviously the microSD slot is as friendly as it gets, just a standard pop slot mounted internally. I will be updating this post with clear images of the internals and consolidating information/files required for both battery and SD card replacement here.

The rest of the device is a bit less friendly in regards to repair but it's hard to find a device that is, which is my reasoning behind always having a cover (ideally the official fitted cover) for every handheld device I own. You may also be screaming at me while reading this: It's not even waterproof! That's also true although I rank this low on the list of disasters likely to befall my device however I do intend to take a preventive measure for this while inside. I will be applying conformal coating to the areas of the board near any cracks or crevices that expose it to the environment beyond which should mitigate moisture/light splash damage.

Where I'll be starting:
-------------------------

• Preowned Glo HD 4GB
• New Official Sleep Cover
• Cameron Sino 1500mAh / 5.55Wh - Model: PR-285083
• Sandisk Ultra 32GB Class 10 UHS-1 microSD Card

This was always intended to be a budget friendly project so I set out to find a well cared for Glo HD for around $50 USD and succeeded. After confirming that purchase I placed orders for the other items after a bit of research. High on the priority list was the official sleep cover which a seller on US Ebay currently selling a handful of $15 at the time of posting. I then began looking for a replacement battery eventually narrowing the search down the the Cameron Sino model I've listed above (I've used Cameron Sino replacements in the past without issues or drop in original run time). The 32GB SD card was something I already had from a previous project but you can find comparable cards for around $10.

Note that the battery is apparently also compatible with a Nook Glowlight Plus (2015) which may help those searching in the future. I recommend searching by the model number for this reason as the seller I purchased from ($15 at time of purchase) only had it listed under the Nook.

To Be Continued
-------------------------
Back soon with a write up - I'll be using known methods for SD upgrade and attempting to simplify them in addition to consolidating required tools into a package if possible.

obviously having a external microSD slot is as friendly as it gets.

enjoy your Glo HD.

best wishes koboy

[rcodi]

Originally Posted by koboy

obviously having a external microSD slot is as friendly as it gets.

enjoy your Glo HD.

best wishes koboy

True enough, although my point was that it's infinitely more friendly than soldered NAND which is ubiquitous nowadays.

[koboy]

Originally Posted by rcodi

True enough, although my point was that it's infinitely more friendly than soldered NAND which is ubiquitous nowadays.

agreed. although any ereader i buy would more than likely be bought new with 12 months warranty, which i wouldn't want to void by opening it to put another
microSD card in, for me it's not worth losing the 12 months warranty or risking any damage.

hence my point the external microSD slot is in my opinion must definitely preferable.

best wishes koboy

[mathil]

Seems to me that rcodi is perfectly right in saying that an internal microSD card is as friendly as it gets, in the context of this thread (which is, maintainability of an ereader in time). When the internal memory fails the external microSD slot isn't going to be of much use, right? Not to mention that OP is talking about modding an used device, whose warranty I would imagine to be expired.

Either way, this is a very interesting project I own a Glo HD (a used one, but one of those Christmas presents that never got opened, so I was quite lucky!) and I totally agree with you that if one wants to buy a Kobo at this moment and have it last, the Glo HD is the perfect choice. It has current e-reader specs and it's ridiculously easy to open and substitute both the internal microSD and the battery. In my case, I've already done both: the first to upgrade to a faster memory, and the second because the original battery started failing and giving me problems a few weeks ago. I got the CameronSino battery as well and so far it's been working splendidly, and I can attest that the installation was very noob-friendly, as it's got the same connector of the original one -- no need to solder anything, just attached it, fixed the battery in place with a couple of pieces of double-sided tape, and that was it. Not very fancy, but I'm looking forward to some tips from you!

[rcodi]

Originally Posted by mathil

Seems to me that rcodi is perfectly right in saying that an internal microSD card is as friendly as it gets, in the context of this thread (which is, maintainability of an ereader in time). When the internal memory fails the external microSD slot isn't going to be of much use, right? Not to mention that OP is talking about modding an used device, whose warranty I would imagine to be expired.

Either way, this is a very interesting project I own a Glo HD (a used one, but one of those Christmas presents that never got opened, so I was quite lucky!) and I totally agree with you that if one wants to buy a Kobo at this moment and have it last, the Glo HD is the perfect choice. It has current e-reader specs and it's ridiculously easy to open and substitute both the internal microSD and the battery. In my case, I've already done both: the first to upgrade to a faster memory, and the second because the original battery started failing and giving me problems a few weeks ago. I got the CameronSino battery as well and so far it's been working splendidly, and I can attest that the installation was very noob-friendly, as it's got the same connector of the original one -- no need to solder anything, just attached it, fixed the battery in place with a couple of pieces of double-sided tape, and that was it. Not very fancy, but I'm looking forward to some tips from you!

Cheers, sounds like you already know your way around the Glo HD quite well! I do have an experiment planned in the form of a 2000mAh battery from Adafruit that appears to even have the same connector, findings will be updated above when that arrives.

[HYPE]

Solid upgrades for a solid device!

Loved my Glo HD so much until I lost it.

[jmontano]

What a nice project and great first post.

I'll pay closed attention to your progress since that's exactly what I've been looking for

[rcodi]

Update:

• Added numerous details in all sections
• First round of images - Stock Board, Conformal Coating, SD card
• SD upgrade section updated with known Windows instructions

[taos]

If you're interested, I replaced my 16 GB microSD card with a 64 GB card about a month ago under Arch Linux:

• remove the old card from the GloHD and put it in a card reader

• connect the card reader to your Linux PC but don't mount the card

• use 'dd' to clone everything from the old to the new one (I first wrote everything to an image file I could later use as backup but that's not necessary)

• use a partition manager (KDE partition manager or gparted will work - or just use the available command line tools directly) to increase the size of the user partition (3rd partition) on the new card (I actually first moved the existing user partition a little to the end to make room for increasing the system (1st) and backup (2nd) partition to 1 GB each first before I increased the user partition)

• put the new card in your GloHD and switch in on - it should now boot and you can use it for reading, however:
  • at this moment, when you connect your GloHD to a computer the user partition might not be seen as external storage (Kobo's own partitioning is a little non-standard and doesn't necessarily survive the re-partitioning), so, if this is the case,
  • go into the setting menu and initiate a factory reset (this will restore Kobo's special partitioning but not actually resize the partitions again)
  • after the reboot, make sure, that everything works (if you don't want to go through the registration process, you can switch off the GloHD remove the new card again and put it in a card reader and copy everything from the old to the new user partition - this will save you the effort to set up everything again - apart of course from modifications that live in the system partition (KSM, KFmon, fmon, nightmode, etc.), these will have to be installed again - and then put the card back in the GloHD).

[Derf]

Nice ideas. Curious why you prefer the Kobo Glo HD to the newer Clara HD? It has the adjustable frontlight color which the Glo HD lacks - one of the 'newer' tech features of eReaders.

I like your idea of the waterproof coating. Tell me, do you think there is any issue with the eInk screen getting wet - it does not have a conformal coating. I would also suggest applying 100% silicone caulk to any connectors (as Kobo factory does) to improve waterproofing the device when using a coating.

If you're looking for some battery options, I found these two candidates. They are both 4mm thick, which is 1.2mm thicker than the stock battery, but they should fit within the dimensions of the stock battery in length and width.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3-7V...35b63c00Z9e7eM

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Newe...35b63c00Z9e7eM

[rcodi]

Originally Posted by taos

If you're interested, I replaced my 16 GB microSD card with a 64 GB card about a month ago under Arch Linux:

Clipped instructions for the sake of thread clutter

Thanks for sharing your experience I'll link your post in the instructions until I nail down the process.

I actually did attempt going the Linux dd route at first but was running into issues having the Kobo recognize the new card. I'm going to chalk it up to a bad backup image or something going haywire during the write process. My Linux sandbox laptop is an ancient (by current standards) Thinkpad X301 and it took ages to perform both the image creation and I figure there are any number of background processes that may have caused issues (Antergos, not running pure Arch).

It's also possible I was just impatient and assumed it wasn't working while it was in fact booting, I realized later that a cold boot does take a bit longer than I expected.

Originally Posted by Derf

Nice ideas. Curious why you prefer the Kobo Glo HD to the newer Clara HD? It has the adjustable frontlight color which the Glo HD lacks - one of the 'newer' tech features of eReaders.

I like your idea of the waterproof coating. Tell me, do you think there is any issue with the eInk screen getting wet - it does not have a conformal coating. I would also suggest applying 100% silicone caulk to any connectors (as Kobo factory does) to improve waterproofing the device when using a coating.

If you're looking for some battery options, I found these two candidates. They are both 4mm thick, which is 1.2mm thicker than the stock battery, but they should fit within the dimensions of the stock battery in length and width.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3-7V...35b63c00Z9e7eM

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Newe...35b63c00Z9e7eM

The Clara HD is a great looking device to be sure! However it was never on my radar due to price. Personally the Glo HD ticked all of the boxes for a newer eReader at the ~$50 used price point - SD expansion, backlight, PPI, and size. I have this strange motivation to buy cheaper projects that usually end up costing as nearly as much (if not more) than a newer, better device in the end so I do realize what I'm doing here.

That being said I do believe the Glo HD provides the best current value for a used eReader if you don't mind getting hands on. It's not uncommon for someone to have spare micro SD cards lying around so they're only out the cost of the eReader and a battery if it needs one.

As far as waterproofing goes I like the suggestion of caulking, that's a very good idea and if anyone wants to take it further than I have that sounds like the way to go. Personally I don't plan to go further than the conformal coating as my device will very rarely be exposed to the elements when traveling.

Thanks for those battery suggestions, if the reviews are to be believed they're quality cells. I'll be looking into getting at least one of them when I get the chance.

On the subject of batteries the Adafruit battery I mentioned a few posts earlier ended up being too tall which was my fault as I thought the back panel had plastic reinforcement that could be cut out to make it fit.

[Derf]

I tested fitting a hypotheical thicker battery into my clara HD by placing a thin piece of aluminum sheet 0.050" (1.27mm) thick onto the battery and closing up the back cover.

While the cover did fit, with two pieces of metal sheet it did not close. I contemplated that a thicker battery than the Clara's 2.8mm thick battery, such as a 4mm thick battery, would fit in the clara, if I wanted to do a battery upgrade.

However, when batteries are charging they swell slightly in size, and when there isn't sufficient room to expand, bad things happen. The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 recall is clear history lesson that without room for expansion, a battery can explode.

[rcodi]

Originally Posted by Derf

I tested fitting a hypotheical thicker battery into my clara HD by placing a thin piece of aluminum sheet 0.050" (1.27mm) thick onto the battery and closing up the back cover.

While the cover did fit, with two pieces of metal sheet it did not close. I contemplated that a thicker battery than the Clara's 2.8mm thick battery, such as a 4mm thick battery, would fit in the clara, if I wanted to do a battery upgrade.

However, when batteries are charging they swell slightly in size, and when there isn't sufficient room to expand, bad things happen. The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 recall is clear history lesson that without room for expansion, a battery can explode.

A wise consideration, it's seeming less feasible as I look into this more as well. It's hard to find a battery that doesn't essentially double the thickness of the stock one in the Glo HD which won't work because the back cover on this device is already pretty close.

It seems the engineers didn't leave much room for improvement - the only idea I have left is to cut out a square from the plastic reinforcement backplate behind the motherboard which seems excessively thick. That should get pretty close to doubling the height of the battery bay in this device.