Badges

Teardowns Participated In

Guide Image

Sony MDR-IF33K Cordless Stereo Earphone System

Here's a Sony wireless stereo earphone system...

Guide Image

Sony TR-63 Transistor Radio

This teardown comes with a bit of a history...

Successful Repairs

Guide Image

PowerBook G3 Pismo Hard Drive Replacement

You can install hard drives up to 12.5mm thick.

Guide Image

PowerBook G3 Pismo Sound Card

Tripped over your power cord? Well, at least...

Guide Image

MacBook Pro 15" Core 2 Duo Model A1211 Hard Drive Replacement

You can install hard drives up to 9.5mm thick.

Guide Image

iPod Mini Battery

Battery not lasting long? Swap it out.

Guide Image

iPod 3rd Generation Battery

Battery not lasting long? Swap it out.

Guide Image

PowerBook G4 Aluminum 12" 867 MHz Optical Drive

Upgrade or replace the combo or SuperDrive.

Answers

  • Answer to: How To Program iPhone 3G LCD/ LCD Datasheet 4 days ago

    from some teardown reports I have read, I heard that there are maybe 3 likely manufacturers of the LCD module: - Toshiba Mobile Display - Sharp - Samsung However I'm not sure if it's easy to find the datasheets for the specific panel, but you may be able to do some digging knowing the makers. I don't know if the manufacturer's part number appears on the panel. on the other hand, I also read that the iPhone 3G uses a National Semiconductor chip to interface to the LCD display, the LM2512AA Mobile Pixel Link display interface http://www.national.com/pf/LM/LM2512A.ht... perhaps you can get a clue from it's data sheet and go from there. have fun and good luck

    #

  • Answer to: Where can I find a star-point screwdriver? Nov 10 @ 11:54 AM

    I'm sure they probably sell Torx screwdrivers on this site :) but a while ago I found a good Torx set with multiple sizes at Radio Shack. At the time I think I was looking for a T6 or smaller and Sears didn't have anything that small. of course stock at your local store may vary. good luck

    #

Notes

  • Sony TR-63 Transistor Radio Teardown Oct 15 @ 10:06 PM

    thanks Kyle. the background grid is one of those self healing cutting mats that you'd find in an art supply store. the lines are on a 1cm square grid.

    Actually the radio does still need repair, I think there might be a break in the battery leads or connector but I didn't want to desolder/replace those before taking the photos and I didn't have time to debug further yet. But I definitely want to see if I can get it working again

    BTW, I don't know if I'll get a chance to tear it down but I managed to dig up another old Sony radio! this time a 1959 model TR-714, which was the first two-band (AM & SW) pocket transistor radio. with 7 transistors! and fortunately that one still works perfectly :)

    #

  • Sony TR-63 Transistor Radio Teardown Oct 15 @ 7:41 AM

    aha! I should have known there'd be an app for that :)

    #

Discussions

Replies

  • Re: My external Time Machine drive died, can I salvage something? Oct 14 @ 7:49 AM

    just a thought...

    I've seen a couple external hard drives "die" i.e. fail to mount, but in fact it turned out that the hard drive mechanism itself was fine and instead the firewire interface board in the external drive had failed.

    I have one of those USB 2.0 -> universal hard drive adapters, it lets you connect any bare drive via USB (e.g. Newertech) - I disassembled the external drive case and connected the bare drive mechanism to my Mac using the USB drive adapter. the drive itself was fine. So I bought a new external drive enclosure to put the bare drive in.

    even if this works, if your drive was showing signs of dying before it failed completely (e.g. strange noises), you might not want to bother putting it into a new enclosure. however with this universal drive adapter you might at least be able to salvage your data and transfer it to a new drive.

    an alternative - if you don't have one of these adapters but have a spare external drive lying around, you could try swapping the internal drive mechanisms to see if your "dead" drive works in another enclosure

    good luck

    #

  • Re: I-PHONE 3GS PUT IN WASHING MACHINE-STILL WORKS! Oct 14 @ 7:29 AM

    if you take it apart, there's a chance the LCD may dry out fully.

    I've put a cellphone through the wash too - fortunately not my iPhone but instead a cheap flip phone. At first it didn't work and the LCD had water under the top glass. But I fully disassembled it and let the parts dry for almost a week. The water inside the screen eventually cleared, and when I reassembled the phone it worked again. so maybe by taking out your iPhone's LCD module there's a chance it will dry completely.

    good luck

    #