Category: Teardown

For this teardown project, I used a 2012 Samsung laptop. This is exciting because to me, a 12 year old laptop feels quite retro. Since computers have been around for almost 50 years, this device represents an important part of that history. Let’s take a deeper look at what’s inside this decade-old laptop.

Here is what the laptop looks like after teardown:

Here is the tool I used for disassembly：

Phillips screwdriver to remove nails.

Scissors to remove connecting wires.

A flat-blade screwdriver to pry open the device casing.

Now, let’s take a look at my disassembly process：

First: Open the bottom case of the laptop.

Second: Remove the battery and motherboard, speaker.

Third: Remove the black tape which covering on the keyboard base.

Fourth: Disassemble the keyboard, control panel, computer case and base.

Fifth: Remove the display from the computer case.

Commonents and Function, Manufacturing Process:

Laptop Cover: Plastic, The cover protects the laptop’s screen from physical damage, dust, and spills when the laptop is closed. It also shields the internal components from external elements.

For Manufacturing, for plastic covers, raw plastic pellets are heated and injected into the mold under high pressure. The plastic cools and solidifies into the shape of the cover.

Speaker: Plastic, The primary function of laptop speakers is to provide audio output. They allow users to hear sounds from various applications, directly from the laptop without needing external speakers or headphones.

For Manufacturing, Cutting, shaping, and preparing the diaphragm, voice coil, magnet, and surround for assembly. Wire is wound around the bobbin to form the voice coil, which interacts with the magnet to produce sound. The diaphragm, voice coil, and magnets are assembled into the driver unit.

Battery: Sodium-ion battery materials, to provide power when the laptop is not connected to an external power source.

Motherboard: A hard sheet of nonconductive material, usually plastic,It connects and integrates all major components, including the CPU, RAM, storage, GPU, and peripheral ports, enabling communication between them.

During the manufacturing process, a sheet of fibreglass fabric is coated with epoxy resin and heated until the resin is partially cured. This sheet is called prepreg. Multiple sheets of prepreg are stacked to the required thickness to create a laminated sheet. Sheets of copper foil are applied to both sides, before being placed in a heated press to complete the curing of the resin and allow the different layers to bond together. The end result is a sheet of copper-clad laminate.

Keyboard: Plastic, It allows users to input text, commands, and data into the computer through keystrokes, making it a primary tool for typing and data entry.

Control panel: Aluminum，To control the movement of the mouse, allowing users to access any program on the computer.

Keyboard base: Plastic, To support the keyboard keys.

USB Port: Steel with paint, A USB flash drive or external hard drive can be used to store and transfer digital art files, including paintings and graphics.

Display Form: Liquid crystal, To provide visual output for the user. It shows the operating system’s interface, applications, media, and other content. LCD Screen form.

Interesting Design Choice:

1. When I disassembled the computer, I removed a lot of black tape from the computer. The purpose of these tapes is to prevent dust and static electricity from affecting the computer components.

2.When I disassemble a computer, all the screws in the computer can be removed with the same Phillips screwdriver. This saves me the time of looking for a screwdriver.

I tore apart the Fitbit Surge with the help of some fit men. Together, we used pliers, an eyeglasses screwdriver, an exacto knife, and our muscles/hands.

_{note: no fit men were harmed in the tearing down of this fitbit.}

Parts and Materials List

1. Battery cover (metal and foam)
2. Alkaline button battery
3. Main Printed Circuit Board including:
   • metal shield,
   • touchscreen controller (Cypress CY8CTMA463),
   • microcontroller (Silicon Labs EFM32 Giant Gecko (ARM Cortex-M3) EFM32GG395F1024),
   • flash memory (Micron Serial NOR Flash N25Q064A11ESEA0F),
   • battery charger (Texas Instruments Battery Charger BQ24232H),
   • GPS receiver (MediaTek GPS Receiver MT3339),
   • Bluetooth controller (Texas Instruments Bluetooth Controller CC2564)
4. Lithium Polymer battery (LSSP491524AE)
5. Metal clasps
6. Rubber liner
7. Silicone-rubber band
8. Plastic casing with built-in:
   • charging port
   • pressure sensor (MS5805-02BA01)
9. Small screws:
   • four 2mm torx screws
   • four 2mm Phillips head screws
   • four 1mm Phillips head screws
10. Wiring
11. Glue
12. Plastic buttons with rubber bumpers
13. Metal casing
14. Metal casing with attached wire
15. Connective wiring and chips
16. Metal binding with wiring
17. Foam
18. Plastic papers
19. Tape
20. Sharp thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal display screen (TFT LCD) screen
21. Silicone-rubber band belt
22. Metal clasp (nickel and stainless steel)
23. Silicone-rubber band
24. Glass display window with wiring
25. Bluetooth antenna (2 parts)
26. GPS antenna
27. Plastic casing with metal screw bearings
28. Metal casing

Manufacturing the Fitbit

• Material extraction
• Injection molding
• PCB manufacturing (coating, printing, chemical etching, inspecting, soldering, cleaning, plating, laminating etc.)
• Battery manufacturing (electrode manufacturing, cell assembly, and cell finishing)
• Assembly

Design elements of interest:

• The buttons: It was interesting to see how the buttons had little rubber “bumpers” that help the buttons stay in place and are protective buffers against the receptors that they hit when pressure is applied.
• The band: The band is glued to the Fitbit electronic where the antennas are. It thereby becomes very hard to remove the bands without damaging the antennas. After seeing all the protective measures for the other electronic parts, it becomes very odd to see these pieces unprotected and easily damaged. It has me wondering if the device is built for obsolescence by a company wanting their users to break their products and then buy new ones.

Welcome to the Taodown! Otherwise known as the Tao Tao Teardown—brought to you by Becky Stern & PoD.

Today, we took apart a Philips Sonicare kids’ electric toothbrush. The short story? It’s made of metal and plastic. The long story—well, keep reading (and watching) below. Also, click here if you need your own—no commissions, sadly.

Tools & Techniques
To deconstruct the toothbrush, I used (1) my hands (2) a tiny screwdriver (3) a less tiny screwdriver (4) a wire cutter and (5) brute strength. The larger screwdriver was required as a lever to remove the plastic outer base of the brush, as well as dislodge both the control board and Li-Ion battery from the plastic skeleton. The tiny screwdriver was used to separate the oscillating brush head, cam, and gears from the shaft (which also held the motor).

Notable Design Elements
(1) It’s probably no surprise that Philips has made the Li-Ion battery next-to-impossible to remove. While electric toothbrushes are rechargeable, the battery will eventually run out, and if it does, you’ll need to buy a whole new unit. There’s no feasible way to replace that battery yourself. That being said, lithium batteries can be dangerous to handle, which means that until they are safe to handle, they should be kept as far out of reach (and replacement) as possible. In which case, a job very well done.

(2) I found myself contemplating the size of the removable toothbrush head. This, of course, is the “consumable” element of the product; the Philips website states that it is “recommended to replace your Philips Sonicare Brush Head every three months of normal use.” Looking at the inner underpinnings of the brush head, I wondered if the replaceable component could be reduced to just the very tip of the brush (just the brush, and no upper shaft), thereby reducing the amount of plastic. However, even if technically possible, Philips would almost certainly ignore this efficiency, because it would imply charging less for their brush replacement packs (a set of three currently retails at $31.96–$42.96).

Electric Toothbrush Components & Materials:
1 – Toothbrush head (plastic + nylon for bristles—most likely Nylon 6-12)
2 – Outer case (plastic)
3 – Charging coil (copper)
4 – Induction charger coil (copper)
5 – Oscillating brush head + cam/gears (steel + plastic)
6 – Screws (steel)
7 – Motor (aluminum + copper)
8 – Torsion bar (steel)
9 -Magnet (iron, nickel, cobalt, +/or steel)
10 – Shaft, cam + gears (steel + plastic)
11 – Circuit board (copper, fiberglass, resin)
12 – Power button cover (plastic)
13 – Button cover / thumb grip (plastic)
14 – Lithium (Li-Ion) battery (lithium, nickel, cobalt, possibly manganese)

Circuit Board Components:
1 – Power button
2 – Programming pads
3 – Coil connections
4 – Chip (#CY8C4247LQI-BL483)
5 – Diode bridge

Chip details
– Type: ARM Microcontrollers – MCU PSoC 4 BLE Integrated Chip; see data sheet
– Manufacturer: Infineon Technologies
– Price: $7.75 (for 1 unit)

Manufacturing techniques & equipment

• Outer casing: These plastic elements are made from plastic granules, shaped while hot in molds along an mechanical assembly line. A computer scans the casing to ensure there are no flaws, and rays of UV light are blasted to make sure the plastic is completely sterile.
• Head and bristles: Bristle color determines thickness (influencing the location on the center or perimeter of brush head). A machine inserts the bristles into holes in the plastic head by folding them around tiny pieces of wire. A blade cuts the tips of the bristles to ensure they’re all the same length, then blunts any sharpe edges. The necks are then attached the the brush heads.
• A machine clamps the gearbox (cam + gears) and motor together. A worker then manually melds them together with the lithium battery, then plugs them into a charging unit to ensure the circuit is connected.
• The inner components are then fitted into the casings via machine assembly.
• A machine then seals the plastic bottom of the casing with a twist.
• A quality controller gives them a final human review, while a subset of the batch are sent off for quality testing (performed by a machine). If that goes smoothly, they’re off to consumers!

TIL:
Maybe we should all just be brushing our teeth with our fingers?

The teardown experience was amazing! To tell the truth, I have always dreaming of disassembling Apple’s products, thinking that its technical content and technological level are unparalleled, which is also the reason why I choose this product.

1.Teardown Process

2. Video Recorded

3. iPhone 4 Teardown

4. Materials

1-Battery: Li-polymer

2-Mainboard: Skyworks SKY77542 Tx–Rx iPAC™ FEM for Dual-Band GSM/GPRS: 880–915 MHz and 1710–1785 MHz bands, Skyworks SKY77541 GSM/GRPS Front End Module, STMicro STM33DH 3-axis accelerometer, Cirrus Logic 338S0589 audio codec……

3-Front glass panel: Corning Gorilla Glass

4-Frame: Stainless steel

5-Wirings: Ferrite polymer composites (FPC)

… …

5.Tools for Teardown

· Adjustable screwdriver kit

· Tweezers

· Open tools

6. Favorite Parts

1. One of the parts I’m most interested in is the vibrator. I was first attracted by its shape, which looks like a cylinder with another half cylinder strung on top of it, and can be rotated around it. It works by using a CAM (eccentric device) to rotate inside the phone, resulting in vibration.

I compared it with the vibrators of other products and found that its volume is actually much smaller than the usual products. I believe that in the future, with the improvement of the accuracy and requirements of mobile phone manufacturing, the production of vibrators will be more compact and precise.

2. The other part I’m interested in is the wiring. Because when I disassembled the parts, I actually sighed that all the lines were very precise and neat. It is hard to imagine how they are produced and assembled, and their role is so crucial in the production of mobile phones that I look forward to learning more about them and even learning to use them.

To Conclude / To Continue

” If you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what’s next.”

Looking forward to the next!