The art of the teardown

February 9, 2012 12:10 PM

There are more than a few websites that take electronic products and document their disassembly. What makes Mike Harrison's YouTube videos stand out is that while doing a teardown he attempts to identify the components and subsystems of a product and explain why a product was made the way it was made. From something as simple as a CD stereo system to a Jumbotron panel. Mike's website has been discussed previously.

Direct links to specific videos:

MSA Fivestar Personal Gas Alarm
A Digital Camera
An emergency defibrillator
A digital theater projector
A mini laser projector
Outdoor LED screen

Here are two where the product turns out to be shoddily made:
Cheap AC adapter
USB RS-485 Converter

posted by toftflin (12 comments total)

That AED teardown was awesome. Great post!
posted by saladin at 12:21 PM on February 9, 2012

I liked the one where he explains why Number 5 is alive.
posted by Metro Gnome at 12:35 PM on February 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

Love these videos, I do these kinds of teardowns with my nephews/niece and we talk about every component. Sent these along for their entertainment.
posted by fake at 12:55 PM on February 9, 2012

Facinating, thanks.

BTW, here's the proper link for the 5-gas meter tear down. He's right about the sensors being short lifetimes. The oxygen ones, for example, last less than a year.
posted by bonehead at 1:09 PM on February 9, 2012

Thanks for posting - there's a good one on SMD basics.
posted by not_that_epiphanius at 1:10 PM on February 9, 2012

I was waiting - against what I realise were long odds - for him to suddenly become stumped as to the cause of the malfunctioning CD tray. No dice!
posted by rongorongo at 3:11 PM on February 9, 2012

The oxygen ones, for example, last less than a year.

Oxygen sensors are usually fuel cells and will last until they exhaust their fuel, they're usually also quite moisture sensitive as I've discovered to my misfortune with an oxygen analyser left out of its case.
posted by atrazine at 5:46 PM on February 9, 2012

Mod note: fixed the fivestar link
posted by taz (staff) at 9:44 PM on February 9, 2012

The DLP projector one is really interesting. It sure looks like $40k of stuff in there...
posted by smackfu at 10:27 PM on February 9, 2012

I wish I understood electricity in this way.
posted by swift at 11:11 AM on February 10, 2012

Very cool -- I'd never seen this guy's videos before.

Here's a brilliant one: instead of drilling and marking front panels manually, just have a PCB shop do it for you!
posted by phliar at 12:23 PM on February 10, 2012

His most recent vid, posted after this was posted here, is a teardown of a handheld credit card terminal, which is really neat because it shows all the security features they have in there to prevent criminals from doing their own teardown.
posted by smackfu at 10:25 AM on March 8, 2012 [1 favorite]