Thank you very much! Michael Couric from Poland I don't my polish felis. We took it a few from Poland So 2-minute teardown Sony gear we do like Sony year cuz what a fascinating tear downs over the years of Sony Gear kseniya. So Hughes they're into so much stuff like a 16 channel digital recorder and stuff like that to the video editing stuff. and it's really her.

Michael Hayes greeting from Poland Sony Walkman there Yeah there if I need you know? any phones? but what the what? Oh oh sorry. I thought that was somehow a chord. No this. they're actually quite weighty, but you're supposed to it.

Yeah, stick the cord behind your head and then the ear things. Wow Anyway, I hate earphones with the little suction cap the suction seal on them I absolutely despise her I cannot wear them for like a minute. Bloody ridiculous. Anyway, check it out.

So Michael is sending these so let you read that later. but these are basically I'm a waterproof. no wonder they kind of. Yeah, they kind of look a bit waterproof you don't they? And they've got the klutz.

Why they have the external contacts like that? that's a border proof penetrator interface. so apparently you can wear these things swimming or whatnot. and I guess that's probably one area where you'd want to plug your ears up I guess when you swimming, but apparently these are eventually died. But you get six seven hours operational use out of these things on a full charge, that's you know.

It's pretty decent bluetooth pairing and then it's got a matching little USB charger II thing. presumably just slide that in there. Oh, isn't that jazzy? Somebody was thinking, oh, rather like that design, it's quite nice. Look at the depth on those contacts, that's that's actually looks like it.

It'd be a really nice, rugged, long-term solution. Wow for charging I Think that's terrific I'm liking that you've got a matching little waterproof. Think where do you stick that? Like whack it on your finger like that when you're swimming, You could do that. What else would you stick it on? Mm-hmm Now, given that there's no absolutely no charging on this at all, unless it's some sort of inductive thing I Doubt it.

I Think it's probably just a single. I Know there you go. Oh yeah, okay, is designed to be replaced. Ah, metal threaded inserts.

That's actually really very nice CR 16 20 little thin bugger and well, jeez, that's a great earring solution on there. Really liking that. There we go, got our little tactile domes on there and that's pretty neat and we're in like Flynn What chipset is that? Whoops upside down and all the electrons are gonna fall out. New rider? Really? that's interesting.

Anyway, it looks like we have a like a programming debug header on this side. Probably some regulation happening here. That's them. You're out a job.

Wow. I didn't know like Narada you think components? you don't think any sort of you know bluetooth II type connection interface. Well, that's interesting. look at on the side of that we've got a port down in there.

There's like a mesh and just see that I think it's two rear port on that element there. that's got to be waterproof. Okay, well that was just a plastic snap off there for the outer and it looks like we have an interesting seal around the inner part. This is the non-charged inside so that's I'll sever comprised it out.

there you go. that's interesting. that was a real solid seal in there. I Had a like a hard time actually prising that out but it does actually come out and we can get the init's hand soldered.

thank you very much on deflect flat flex and there's a little battery. so we've got a battery per side so obviously gone the cable between them because this one doesn't have the contacts so we're gonna have the wires coming over. Yep, you can see the multi-core down in there. It's actually quite a lot coming over.

Wow look at that. but yep, what we have is just a big ass Lithium-polymer battery. Looks like they might have some protection in there as well. Nice work.

Sony but it's all happening in that little job' there which I don't know. can we can we still a part number off? That does it matter? I don't think so. Anyway, that's it. I mean just on a flat flex, it's just a headphone drive.

The analog signal would be coming over from over the headband the other side. We have exactly the same solution. So we have the outer case which would form the first barrier not hundred percent, but then the second one and that just holds in the like the tactile buttons along the top. There they've got their own ceiling and then we've got this interesting like plug arrangement.

There we go. Got a flat flex cable going onto a PCB two PCB solution in this case, because we're going to have the receiver in here and all your decoding goodness. And is that all that evidence of water ingress? Perhaps because yeah, apparently this died after several years of use. So I think it eventually seeped in now.

I'm actually quite impressed by that fit to envelope design. There's not enough. there's not much left over. I Got double sided load on that top board.

thank you very much. In the bottom board, that would be your memory put it and that would be your applications processor. presumably because you've got to have all your memory in there. I Don't think it's a stream thing is it? I Think do you download it I Don't know.

Okay, so this is interesting. They went for the flat flex connector. they're going over to the buttons. that's the that's the front panel board for those buttons there.

Oh yeah, we can get that out there you go. but then over on this board they've got you can see no connector over here. that is an integrated rigid flex solution. So they're manufactured that board as a rigid PCB plus the Flex in the middle.

so you can do away with the connector because obviously you know you haven't got much room left over a volume in here to put your connector so it's better. It's like more expensive from a PCB manufacturing point of view to get that done, but you can argue it might even be p-per in volume. If you get rid of the connector, blah blah blah, you get rid of an extra failure point, an extra assembly step. You know somebody's got to put that ribbon cable in correctly and then fold down the bar on top of there and you know it all just takes time.

So why they didn't do it as one big hit? not quite sure. sure. The design engineers they yeah, look that and that. but imagine if that came as one big like 4 board solution.

So this one over here, we've got some extra buttons do we? This button board and if that was an integrated rigid flex solution in there and then that obviously went over to there. Oh look, there got a flex going from that solder point over there. They needed a low and they needed a low impedance path. They need a lot of copper to connect that over to there so they had to put in the extra flat flex.

Is that a As a big like of it's a mod wire basically to give extra current. What? They couldn't get it on the inner layer of the PCB Hmm Wow As it turns out, I Had to break that out of there because these contacts down in here look at this. their pot it. Yeah, that's a really.

it's not quite hard, but that is a rigid pot in and then just solder post go through. and they actually sort of that after they get that in. So that's that's really interesting. There you go.

They solder that I had to break those connections off on the bottom of that board. Oh, we've got another board on the bottom. There you go. so that that's interesting anyway.

that's how you do penetration there. They're called penetrators when they go through the case like that and there's an art to doing penetrators and something like that. like yeah, you'll get you know, a few meters water resistance unit. You know you're not gonna go diving with this thing or so.

Oh, you probably could. You know you might get 10 meters or something like that. Radian Not sure what the rating is for this one. Anyway, that's interesting that they decided to then solder those on there because when you solder them on to the PCB someone's got a hand solder that that's good.

Is it just going to heat up your pot in in there? So whether or not that would that would cause an issue? I don't know. So anyway, I find that an interesting choice? Yeah, off the bat. I wouldn't have chosen that I would have had like some sort of like pogo pen arrangement or something like that pushing against the board. perhaps.

but it's not going to be as robust so it's all the trade-off I'm sure they knew what they were doing. I'm sure a lot of design review meetings were had. Anyway, is the back of our back have our little speaker down in there that's just gunked in place? Well, this actually has a lot more in it than we first thought. I don't know what that is.

Fiddle licks I don't know what a fiddle exists, but I'll look that up and put the info there. and then what are we got here? Don't recognize that either, so that looks like it could be that's got to be. It's got to be a memory and then, so that's on. So your memories just on the one board because they couldn't fit it down on this main board here.

That's interesting, but on the reverse side of this, you've got more. As I said, you've got some sort of Bairdi flip-chip down under there and that which I thought was memory. Uh-huh that's a freescale. That's our applications processor.

Is it fascinating? There's a lot more in there, well as a fair bit more than I expected. And the engineering that's gone into that? It's really quite nice. And I Love the like that they have done the penetrators really well. Not so sure about this top solution.

Not entirely sure how that's supposed to work. It is plastic on the bottom. Then they've got a green which is not even a rubbery. it's just kind of like a plastic cap.

really. So look, they look like traces. What? what? What's going on there? Oh, that's an antenna. Is that an antenna? That's an antenna? There you go.

They've integrated the antenna on the plastic. Oh, isn't that nice? Wow Didn't notice that. That's neat. Aha well done.

Sony But of course the other cap actually doesn't have that. Of course they don't need that. but yeah. I just find that I don't know how that plastic cap was supposed to be waterproof that whereas you know the beautiful oh ring solution on that.

that was just fantastic. But yeah, I'm not sure about the the headphones, but still, you know I'm sure they've done their homework on that. As I said, there would have been many designer review meetings and lots of chamber tests and things like that to pressure test cuz I used to we used to have like pressure tanks I used to do pressure testing in like gigantic vats but you know you could go up to like 200 bar or something I can't remember. but yeah I think was 200 bar.

Anyway it was just ridiculous sort of pressures and you test them in the big pressure pot. We would often actually production test hundreds of units at a time in a big pressure pot. but yeah I'm sure they don't a production test these. It would have been designed into the engineering that it's waterproof and then maybe other nice spot.

check them over time. But anyway so yeah, water path is into the sides of course. like the the penetrators. fine it's there's no problem there whatsoever.

your waters not going to get through your penetrator. but and they're probably through this cable. Not sure like they've got a really big rubber. forgot to show that big rubber penetrator inside there.

even though this is rigid plastic on the outside, you'd have to is that all integrated? I don't know. but yeah I'm sure they've got a really nice solution in there for the penetrator of the cable. But anyway, so you've got to get the water through this out us. Imagine that sitting on the back there.

the water's got to get in this edge. It's got any up through here and granted, these are just clipped on I was able to get the knife in there and just pop those off. It does kind of. I Think they've probably got a good enough seal on the tactile domes in there.

and I think you get any penetration through there? I Think the penetration is going to come up the side and then over and then of course you've got your protective cap. This one goes in there like that. which one again is just that. You can see the clips.

it's just a clip fit on there and this looks like the green stuff looks like a rubber solution. Like it looks like a rubber o-ring solution. but it's it. just the way it doesn't.

sort of. they bulge out towards the edges of the case. So I don't see that working as an o-ring And it, it's just plastic. Yeah, it's It's not like a green rubber or anything like that.

I'm sure they've done their homework as I said, but jeez. I find coming from a marine electronics background where water ingress was, you know the thing. Look at that. You can see that there's this sort of like sharp Ridge molded into there like that by the looks of it pushes.

- if it was going to push down. If the green was like a a rubber which it doesn't seem to be like an o-ring it doesn't put, it's not pushing down the correct way. and as I said, it's not protruding enough to do that. So maybe when it goes like I just don't get it I just I Really? I'm like it has something to do with that, but that's just like a step.

I don't know I'm not feeling it I'm not feeling it. If anyone's got any better idea of how that's actually working, please leave it in the comments I Don't know how they've gotten away with that, but presumably they have in most cases. maybe not in this one. You know you get a bit of flexing your plastic and stuff like that.

you get the extra water path coming in. get a bit of contamination in the factory when they're puttin this on. for example, it only takes you know someone's little hair in there from the factory or whatever to ruin that ruin that seal. So yeah, you'd want to be careful.

but is anyone else had one of these Sony things and had it failed you - water ingress. Did they goof that up? I Can't believe that they would have goofed it up And sure it's adequately engineered and tested. but anyway, very interesting. Hmm, of course they didn't decide to pop the thing.

They could have done that. You could could have gotten away with your plastic solution if you just fueled all that in at the production stages, filled it all up with a you know, some sort of flex or other potting compound or whatever. Of course that would have given it some extra weight of course. Anyway, they're things already like a reasonably heavy cuz it's got batteries inside there and whatnot, nor the plastic and all the other stuff that goes into that.

So there you go I Cut this one away. These look to be two identical penetrators, so there's a there's this top cover that goes over that that really doesn't do much at all, but then there's a plastic in here. Then there's another. once you cut that away, then there's an inner plastic which then that would be sort of potted, glued whatever onto the PVC cable.

and then they've got what looks like at least one little lowering. Yeah, you can see a slot there in the that looks like some that's probably like Teflon or Delrin something like that. So yeah, probably some sort of dill ranee. Probably put the kettle on material and they've got a nice little o-ring inside that, yeah, it looks like what they do is all this black plastic around here of course is part of the outer case molding.

and then they shove the wire through this door and type material would already be sealed and glued onto the cable. Then they slide that in, the wires had come through, they'd pull it through and then they put a little circle upon there to hold that in place so it doesn't fall out while the cable manage and terminate the wires so they couldn't. Oh ring seal and that penetrator. That's really nice.

I Like that. Quite a few people over the years have asked me how to do like underwater design, underwater stuff and things like that and there is at like an art to o-rings and in the amount of compression you can put on them and really know Oh rings going to do jack or in any serious situation and there unless they're properly lubed up with the correct type of correct type and correct amount of lubricant, you've got to have the correct pressure on the o-rings and all sorts of stuff. And yeah, we used to do gasps testing we'd have we filled them with was gone or some so I can't remember exactly but we'd fill the products with a guess and then we'd go around with a sniffer Pro under pressure to try and see if they were like sniff for any leaks and stuff like that. So anyway, of course you wouldn't go to this sort of effort in a consumer product like this.

You'd just design it and test it at the design stage and then of course you just mass-produce it. and as I said, you might periodically you know, test that your that your mouldings are still okay and things like that, you certainly wouldn't factory test each one of these little low-cost consumer products as opposed to like a you know, a ten or a hundred thousand dollar underwater sonar or something like that. you gotta take it a lot more seriously. that is actually yeah, quite well engineered even if water I think did eventually get into these and kill.

um but nice Sony bit a kit and of course Sony do their rigid flex things like there's no tomorrow. you know that's that's one of their things they've been doing that since the eighties, so yeah, they'd probably pioneer a lot of that sort of stuff in the consumer space. But anyway, that's beauty. Thanks.