By now, you’ve hopefully seen (and loved!) considered one of final month’s posts, the place I shared the insights from Christoph Riehl. In his previous skilled life, Riehl was a member of the event group (targeted totally on the RF subsystem) at Siemens VDO for the Volvo key fob that I’ve been masking in a number of of my current writeups.
This month, I’m as soon as once more “crowdsourcing” my content material, this time from Huan Nguyen, a firmware engineer at native agency Halleck-Willard, Inc. (HWI), a Steripack firm. Again in early June, I’d mentioned how the untimely failure of the embedded batteries in a pair of Beats Powerbeats Professional earbuds had resulted in them being helpful solely as light-weight paperweights, and that HWI had provided to aim to resurrect them utilizing substitute elements and video directions from one other firm, Joe’s Gaming and Electronics:
I shipped the lifeless earbuds and substitute batteries, together with the tube of glue and instruments, to HWI on the finish of April, and Huan obtained again to me in mid-June with some disappointing information: “I’m unhappy to say I didn’t resurrect the earbuds”. Nonetheless, he’d totally documented his travails, and he acquiesced to my request to republish and share all of them with you right here. With out additional ado, over to you, Huan!
In a current article for EDN, Brian Dipert writes about his expertise struggling the results of obsolescence by design of the Powerbeats Professional earbuds. He reached out to our group to have any individual try the restore and doc the method. I volunteered and this previous weekend ensconced myself within the lab to attempt to carry the earbuds again to life. I pulled up the Joe’s Gaming and Electronics video restore information that Brian mentions, fired up the soldering iron, and set to work.
Spoiler alert: I sadly failed in my try. Nonetheless, the results of this try is documented in order that readers can study from my errors, and hopefully lengthen the lifetime of their $200+ earbuds past simply a few years.
Step one was to take away the housing cowl from the primary earbud. The trainer within the video recommends utilizing a razor blade for this delicate course of.
After I hear the phrase “razor”, I believe “razor-sharp” or “cuts issues like a sizzling knife by means of butter”. Whereas working the blade by means of the housing plastic, I appeared up and realized that, on the workbench, now we have a sonic cutter obtainable. I threw its swap and lowered the blade into the housing plastic.
It sliced simply by means of the housing plastic, with a lot much less pressure required than for the razor blade. Nonetheless, the minimize it made was thicker than the razor blade, and the plastic was barely deformed all alongside the minimize.
After I lastly broke by means of the seam throughout the housing cowl and popped it off, I found that the minimize was fairly tough. The housing cowl itself appeared ragged across the edges, and I feared (rightly, as it will end up) that re-assembling the housing and canopy would show tougher because of the deformed plastic.
The minimize already having been made, I moved onto the subsequent step of eradicating the battery protect. First the contact cable wanted to be indifferent from the protect: I resorted to sliding the sting of the razor’s blade and gently levering the cable off the protect.
With the cable indifferent, the protect may very well be eliminated. The flathead screwdriver proved to be the proper device for levering the protect out of the housing.
With the battery protect out of the way in which, I had entry to the battery and its lead wires. There was glue masking the terminals of the lead wires, in addition to some holding the battery into the housing.
Eradicating the glue was simply completed: a bit of warmth from a sizzling air gun made it a easy process to pop the glue off from the terminals, and an X-ACTO knife sliced by means of the glue on the aspect of the battery (watch out to not quick any connections, as I later did!).
With the glue eliminated, the soldering iron was sufficient to take away the battery wires. I moved the wire out of the solder blob with the iron till the blob cooled.
In hindsight, I ought to have arrange a 3rd hand device or different fixture to carry the earbud whereas I manipulated the wire with a pair of tweezers in a single hand, with the soldering iron within the different.
That completed, I inserted the flathead screwdriver into the hole between the battery and PCBA/housing and levered the battery out of the enclosure.
The brand new battery slid proper in with out difficulty. Nonetheless, its lead wires have been only a bit too lengthy, needing a little bit of trimming earlier than soldering to the terminals.
On reflection, it might need been simpler to solder the lengthy wire to the terminal after which tuck the additional size into the hole between the housing and battery—chopping the wire required stripping it once more, and I used to be required to strip the wire with a delicate contact utilizing the sting cutters (fairly than the comfort of a wire stripper device).
That completed, I slid the battery cowl again into place, sliding it in order that the tab on the prime slotted again into place into the enclosure.
The remaining step within the course of was to connect the housing cowl again on to the housing. Making use of the glue and holding the duvet in place necessitated each palms, leading to a scarcity of images for this step—however we’ll see the outcomes later in a comparability to the second earbud.
For the second earbud, I remembered my decision to forgo the sonic cutter and use the razor blade as an alternative. That resulted in a a lot cleaner separation between the housing and its cowl. I discovered that the most effective approach was to softly insert the blade’s edge into the seam, after which rock the razor backwards and forwards whereas urgent it into the plastic, versus making an attempt to slip the blade back-and-forth in a chopping or sawing movement.
Sadly, I broken the system within the technique of swapping the second battery. I tore the cable off the protect and out of the system, in addition to shorting one thing (as a lot as we wish to name it “magic smoke”, I desire protecting it inside any gadgets I contact!) and inflicting a spark inside.
Deeming the electronics irreparably broken, I believed no less than I would try a greater re-assembly than I had carried out for the primary earbud. The primary time, I added a bit an excessive amount of glue and a bit an excessive amount of across the periphery, ensuing within the glue oozing exterior of the housing and creating a visual and colourful hole between the duvet and housing. On this second try, I laid a line of glue across the complete size of the seam between the duvet and the housing, ensuring to bias the road in the direction of the within of the housing.
The tip results of that was an earbud that appeared near new, with a barely-perceptible widening within the hole between the housing and the duvet in comparison with the way it was previous to disassembly. It definitely appeared a lot better than the primary earbud.
All in all, I’d take into account the restore not technically tough nor prolonged (requiring me about 90 minutes to get by means of this course of for the primary time, undoubtedly much less for any future makes an attempt), however requiring a gentler contact than it may appear.
A part of the problem in my eyes was not having all of the details about the system I would love. I spent loads of pointless time on the primary earbud making an attempt to delicately minimize by means of the seam between the housing and canopy as a result of I wasn’t positive how thick it was and didn’t wish to harm something by chopping too rapidly.
As these gadgets are designed for obsolescence fairly than restore, I accepted that I couldn’t have discovered drawings or different data for them. Maybe sooner or later such data will likely be obtainable for others making an attempt to restore their earbuds, and even their laptops and their telephones – New York state has only in the near past handed a right-to-repair invoice, maybe paving the way in which for different states sooner or later.
Brian, myself, and lots of others will likely be wanting ahead to seeing the change from customers just about having to toss their previous tech into the landfill, to having the ability to lengthen their helpful life and lower your expenses whereas doing so.
I suppose we now know why Joe’s Gaming and Electronics doesn’t do onsite repairs anymore!
Ample thanks go to Huan for his effort and time (over the weekend!), together with his in depth textual content and picture documentation of the venture, in making an attempt the restore of the Beats Powerbeats Professional. Thanks, too, to his managers at HWI for supporting my request and his involvement. Talking of documentation, Huan assembled a sizeable tranche of photos and movies, which I’ve linked to right here for those who’re concerned about downloading and browsing them for your self.
powerbeats full media (half 1)
powerbeats full media (half 2)
I requested Huan to re-open each earbuds’ housings earlier than sending them again to me, as I plan to do a whole teardown quickly. Till then, Huan and I each welcome your ideas within the feedback!
—Brian Dipert is Editor-in-Chief of the Embedded Imaginative and prescient Alliance, and a Senior Analyst at BDTI and Editor-in-Chief of InsideDSP, the corporate’s on-line e-newsletter.
Associated articles:
