Inside a TX (Hi-Res pics of TX's internals)

Hello all. I just had a very bad scare with my brand-new TX. Suddenly it refused to eject an SD card. After a lot of pushing and swearing the card finally came out, but after that the TX refused to recognize any card at all. Since I'm not going to the city in a couple of weeks I decided to open it and check what was wrong. In the end it seemed that the spring clip that snaps when the card is inserted was somehow not working properly. I started tinkering with the spring and applied some WD-40 by spraying a dummy card and inserting that card repeatedly into the slot until the spring function was ok again. Maybe it was some dirt or some other foreign matter, but I could see nothing wrong.

Anyways, I took the chance to take some pics of the TX's innards using the scanner, just as I did on my "Inside a Treo 650 thread here. Here's what I found.

The inside of the back cover. Not much to see, just the speaker, battery and some RF shielding. There's also an ellaborated mechanism for the reset button, with a plastic spring clip:



The TX without the back cover. More on the components further down:



PCB, back side. You can see the BT radio module under the shield with the round pattern of holes. Above is the headphone socket, and to the right is the Wi-Fi radio module (labeled SyChip 6064). Above the Wi-Fi is the BT antenna, labeled "antenova". Next is the SD slot, the one that just caused me a hell of a headache Just below the Wi-Fi is the reset button (silver circle). The lower left part is the power supply, buitl around a Maxim 8588 power management chip.



Next is the front side of the PCB. The black rubbery sheet is a heat sink, but makes for a very dull picture.



Once the heat sink is removed we can see the magic of the TX:



I had a lot of trouble finding info on some of the chips. Most of them are listed for sale in many Chinese websites, but they provide almost no info, not even a general description, let alone a datasheet. Here's what little I could find (from left to right):

- Samsung K9F1G08U0A, NAND Flash, 128Mx8 bit
- MX E064033. No info on this one. BT or Wi-Fi controller? RAM? If someone knows, please let me know.
- Two Texas Instruments 69A67YJ. Again, no info. I'm thinking RAM, but can't tell for sure.
- Intel PXA270 processor.
- WM1613G. No info. Note that this same chip can be found on the Treo 650.
- Next to the CPU is the clock crystal. Alas, I forgot to clean its case to read the label, and now my TX is closed.
Other items to note: On the top left is the golden spring contact for the WiFi antenna, which is housed in the top panel. There's also the IR assembly, the headphone jack and the power button. This power button looks very flimsy compared to the one on my T3. No wonder it fails often.

Here's the top panel, with the WiFi antenna at the left:



Finally, here's the back of the screen. Not much to see, since the PCB is shielded. First time I see such a shield on a palm display.



Comparing the inside of my TX to that of the Treo 650, I'm impressed by how clean the TX is. No greasy fingerprint marks, no dirt or dust inside. The 650 was a mess inside. Maybe Palm is using more than one assembly location, and they have different quality standards.

Hope you enjoy the pics!

EDIT: After reading a couple of threads here and at 1src regarding the TX's WiFi antenna I checked my TX again and found that I was mistaken in the identification of the antennas. The one placed on the top panel that makes contact with the gold spring contact at the top of the mainboard is the WiFi antenna. The one labeled "antenova" is the BT antenna. Checking the pics you can even see the paths leading from BT and WiFi radios to each antenna. Sorry for the confusion, I should have paid more attention when first checked the TX. I just edited the above description to match.

 

Thanks! Very interesting to look at. Very clear results with the scanner.

 

Is the battery that grey thing in the second picture?

 

Nope. The battery is on the first pic (inside the back case), just below the speaker. It's labeled "Samsung SDI". You can see the red and black wires coming out of it. The grey thing is a shield covering the lower part of the screen.

 

Soldered to the board eh?

 

Yes sir!
Battery is soldered. Very inconvenient IMO, since the wires are short and that makes it difficult to maneuver the back case when opening or closing the TX.

 

Thanks, that was interesting.
So where is the IR transceiver?

B.

 

The IR transceiver is at the top of the mainboard, on the component side (4th and 5th pics starting from the top). It's the small rectangular module with the two black hemispheres on top of it.

 

Look at the 4th and 5th pictures: it's top and center with 2 little domes on top.

 

Raspabalsa, these are very nice detailed pics! Great info for anyone. Thanks!