by Lauren Wedderburn
The modem is primarily made of plastic for the outer container, and contains metals like copper and aluminum in its internal electronic parts. The circuit board is made from fiberglass, gold and other materials.
The electronics all exist on a single circuit board.
Tools Used:
Hands
Small screwdriver
Pliers
Technique
To me, the takedown for this felt rather straightforward.
1. I used pliers to peel back the sticky tabs (feet) on the bottom of the modem
2. I used the screwdriver to take out the small screws holding the body together. Then I used my hands to pry open the body which revealed the circuit board.
3.I used my pliers to cut the rubber screws holding the Cable Modem chip in place, which released the springs and allowed me to remove it -> pictured below.
Parts
Note: I found it a bit difficult to find the exact model of my modem online, so I used similar devices to try and identify the electronic parts.
I inserted the quote below to provide context around the parts that I could not identify.
“The cable modem chip connects to two memory chips, one a synchronous DRAM, the other a Flash. The flash chip lets the cable company change aspects of the subscriber’s internet service without actually changing any hardware. In that regard, the flash chip holds configuration data and comes into play, say, when a cable subscriber buys more download speed from the cable company.”
– https://www.microcontrollertips.com/teardown-inside-cable-modem/