insideGadgets

Today we’ll be taking a look at the  D-Link AirPlus Xtreme G Wireless Router  – a 4 port 10/100 ethernet and wireless router with 1 external antenna which has a date code of 2005/15th week.

Two screws later and we’re in.

At first glance the PCB is quite big and there’s a bit of empty space on it, they could have made it smaller if they really wanted to. We’ve got 4 chips plus a Wifi chip underneath the metal shield, an MPS MP1410ES SMPS on the input which can accept 5V to 15V, an ADE435 voltage regular near the metal shield and we have two AME AME8807 LDOs. Also we’ve got some tantalum capacitors which haven’t been too common in the routers I’ve seen.

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Today we’ll be taking a quick look at the Netcomm NB5 ADSL2+ Modem Router which has a date code of 2005/33rd week and a Ethernet/USB based modem/router. We’ve done a teardown of the NB5 ADSL version of this router before so lets how similar they are.

Some screws later and we’re in.

There are a few noticeable parts on the board, firstly the 3300uF 16V capacitor glued to the board (which has come off), a larger than usual 100uH inductor, a fuse with a metallic outer shell and they are using an MC34063 SMPS.

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Today we’ll be taking a quick look at the SMC 2-Port Annex A ADSL2/2+ Modem Router (SMC7901BRA2) which has a date code of 2008/4th week and it’s a simple Ethernet or USB based modem/router.

Two screws later and we’re in.

The first thing noticeable is the large Elcon 3300uF 25V capacitor near the middle of the board. There is a 6×2 pin header which is most likely a Jtag header, 2 crystals 35.3MHz and 25MHz and we have a Semitech SC4519H SMPS.

The main chip is an Infineon PSB7200ZDW XWAY AR7 with an ISSI IS42S16800A 128Mb SDRAM and an Eon EN29LV160AB-70TCP 16Mb Flash.

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Today we’ll be looking into something a bit different than the regular items we have on – the Slim Devices Squeezebox v3 Network Music Player which has a date code of 2006/12th week. The Squeezebox is a LAN/Wifi network music player which plays music from your computer and outputs it to RCA, S/PDIF or headphones.

It can also play internet radio and also doubles as an RSS news ticker. The screen is a VFD which looks very nice, maybe I can use it for a project.

Looks like we have an IR sensor at the front, on the back we have the Wifi board with two antennas and some chips. We’ve got a large 3300uF 16V capacitor though it’s a Samxon branded one. There is another board underneath with all the processing power which we’ll look afterwards.

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Today we’ll be looking into the Netgear Storage Central Turbo SC101T NAS which is a 2 bay NAS with Gigabit Ethernet. It has a date code of 2006/43rd week.

A few screws later and the side panels removed, we’re in.

The 2 hard drives go in the front and we’ve got the PCB at the back with fan near the center top.

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Today we’ll be taking a quick look at the Netgear 8 Port 10/100Mbps Fast Ethernet Switch Switch (FS608 v2) which has a date code of 2005/42nd week.

Two torx screws later and we’re in.

As we’ve seen before these old switches use similar parts to one another. We’ve got our AP34063 SMPS and a LD1117 voltage regulator both of which we found on a Netcomm NB6 Router we looked at a little while ago. The inductors legs a quite thin and it’s very easy to move around which isn’t the best.

Under the heatsink we’ve got the Realtek RTL309SB – a 9 Port 10/100 switch controller running off a 25MHz crystal, it’s at least a bit different than the IC+ chips we normally see in other switches.

And that’s all.

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Today we’ll be taking a quick look at the Netcomm NB6 Rev2 ADSL2+ Modem Router which has a date code of 2010/28th week. It’s an entry level modem/router which can also connect via USB which is how ADSL modems used to connect back in the day.

The usual 4 screws later and we’re in.

There are 4 additional screws holding the board down however they are positioned right on the outside of the board which could mean they didn’t have much space on the board. All electrolytic capacitors on board are branded Lelon.

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Today we’ll be taking a quick look at the Starnet 8 Port 10/100Mbps Ethernet Switch (SH-9008P) which has a date code of 2003/40th week.

4 screws later and we’re in.

Not a whole lot to see as we’d expect, there is a TD34063 which is a variant of the MC34063 SMPS. Other than that, we do have lots very noticeable of via stitching.

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It’s retro teardown time, today we’ll be taking a look at a game called Galaxian 2 made by Futuretronics which was build in 1981 so we’ve had this around for a long time. You can either play single player or with someone who controls the alien ships.

We used to have a joystick mounted for easier control on the single player controls. For anyone who owns one of these games you might notice a potentiometer near the second player’s controls, this was a modification that one of my relatives made to it to increase or decrease the game speed; and I always thought it that this game had that feature by default! It takes 4x C batteries, has a DC jack too and of course is missing it’s battery cover.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJyfhD36BIA

Here’s a video of me playing the game and listening to the game over music.

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Today we’ll be taking a look at the DrayTek Vigor2710ne Wireless ADSL2+ Router which is fairly recent from 2012, it has the usual 4 10/100 LAN ports and 802.11n Wifi capability.

One screw later and we’re in.

Most capacitors on the board are branded Su’sucon which may not be the one of the good capacitor brands. The board has the option of fairly large capacitors which aren’t populated – something seen more in older routers. There’s also a small slot on the PCB which the antenna is wrapped around to keep it in place.

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