In my quest to hack the PlayStation Classic, I have to first open up the system to see what’s inside and what makes it tick. In this video, we’ll teardown the PlayStation Classic console and explore its insides, determine the state of its build quality, and see what kinds of electronics are hiding inside!
It’s a good console, you should get one on Amazon (and hack it): https://amzn.to/2BOteef
Continuing on our quest to hack the PlayStation Classic and coming off the heels of the console teardown last week, I thought it might be fun to also take a peek inside the PlayStation Classic’s USB controllers and see how they’re put together.
The PlayStation Classic is still a lot of fun. Grab one on Amazon (and hack it): https://amzn.to/2BOteef
In my quest to make the World’s Smallest Donkey Kong Arcade Cabinet, I needed to tear down the 2018 Hallmark Keepsake Donkey Kong arcade cabinet Christmas tree ornament and see how I could use the shell to house my electronics. In this video, you’ll see the complete process (including a lot of trial and error) as well as what makes this “magic” ornament tick!
They’re sold out from Hallmark, but you can try the usual suspects:
Music by Anders Enger Jensen http://eox.no
As part of Project Xyberpunk for element14 Presents, I needed to teardown the Xybernaut MAIV wearable computer. In this video, I’ll take the Xybernaut MAIV teardown to green boards to find out what kind of processor runs the Xybernaut MAIV as well as determine what other hardware is present inside it.
Watch the complete Project Xyberpunk series at element14.com
Teardown and exploration of how a string of fairy lights/Christmas lights/holiday lights works. Part of the Project Rankin series that intends to build a holiday ornament powered by the AC electricity in a light strand.
In this video, we’re going to teardown a few of Harbor Freight’s LED lighting products to harvest the parts for some other projects. In particular, I’m interested in different LED form factors to add some variety to Project Eros, so we will be tearing apart a switch light, a small flashlight, and an adhesive puck light to have at their innards and see what we can salvage from them. Which one will have the most useful parts? The answer may surprise you!
Check out the rest of Project Eros here
The Mego 2XL Robot is an interesting piece from the very beginning of interactive electronic toys. The 1970s 2XL incorporated little more than a modified 8-track player to provide hours of entertainment on specially-formatted cassette tapes. In this Mego 2XL teardown, we’ll look at how the toy was built, the basic working mechanism, and attempt to diagnose a 2XL not working.
RESOURCES:
2XL Documents (contains US Patent and component data sheets)
The Califone 1400 series record players were built like tanks: able to be thrown across a classroom, climbed upon by kindergartners, and still keep playing! Let’s take a peak inside and see just how it was built!
The big takeaway from this expedition is that the internals are extremely simple. Despite the relatively large size of the unit, most of the internal space is empty. A 12″ speaker driver sits behind the steel grille on the front of the unit and a small 3×5-inch PCB contains all of the electronics. The grounded 120VAC input directly powers the turntable motor then connects to a 4:1 transformer providing 30VAC to the tonearm light, and a small rectification circuit on the PCB that powers the amplifier circuitry.
I’ll have to make a better copy of this schematic for posterity. Fortunately, Califone was good enough to glue one inside the case. I’ll just have to copy it into Fritzing to make it a little more legible and update this article once it’s available.
Some 1400 series phonographs had their AC motors replaced with DC models as they were cheaper to produce and didn’t require 60Hz mains for timing. Califone issued a service bulletin in 1990 to illustrate the process for their field technicians. At least mine is still original.
Speaking of service bulletins: You can download them from here.
Now that I’ve got a pretty solid idea how this thing goes together, it’s time to start redesigning the electronics.