Vizio 7" LED TV teardown

[Rymel]

hey guys, thought i'd start a new post since the other title was kind of retarded after i'd bought one. i'm gonna paste over the first picture post, and continue from there:

as promised, pics, and a video






uh, ignore what the backplate is doing to my face o_O















edit: the video is the last image, click it to view, or just watch the youtube vid of it i put up after i found out i can't put up a video player: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2N2VkyLrR5k

there are descriptions for each photo if you want to see my opinions on the given shots, but basically speaking this thing is pretty light and is about the same size as a ps2 slim. i may just skip modding it entirely for the first mobile unit i make and just construct a case to mount it all in and build a custom external battery pack for use with any other portables i make this year.

i WILL have to construct a custom ps2 av to av mini stereo cable though, because that jury rig i did is going to get cumbersome, fast, but honestly for my uses (breaks at work) this first run may just be a kitbash instead of a full-blown portable project. since these screens are so damn cheap i may go buy 2-5 more before they disappear from that costco as it's not even on their website. but if i do one is going to a definite handheld ps2, and the other...maybe a wii laptop for use with gc and emulators. cuz who wants to do motion gaming on a 7" screen?

and here's new shots!

i skipped shots of me prying the case open with a knife, partially because i couldn't hold the tv and pry while taking pics. it comes apart extremely easily, and there's only 2 screws total, both on the antenna side underneath the sticker. the sticker was also very easy to remove. careful not to shove the knife too far in or you might scratch something. i scratched the back side of the case that covers the lcd screen, so i can't close this back up to use normally should i ever choose to. meh, all or nothing i guess.


case opened up. the panel attached to the front of the case is the capacitive touch control panel. i've yet to figure out how to transfer that over and honestly may scrap it entirely and control the volume through external means between the tv and headphone out. the power button's separate so it's not terribly critical to keep. the nipple-looking things are the speakers, and i'm not sure what the white strip is on the metal frame but it was behind the buttons. so if it's required for the touch panel to work, i may just scrap it.


just a shot to show panel thinness and the backlight. that thing is literally a wafer.


circuit board. there's 4 screws holding it down. plenty of play on that cable should you want to move it away from centered-above-the-board. be warned that there was glue holding down the tray antenna-side, but light prying with my knife got it off without issue. just don't panic when you can't get it off.

this shot also shows the antenna's mount point, the metal part on the bottom right. i can't figure out how to remove the antenna so my complete removal had to stop shortly after this. tomorrow, when it's not 1am i'm gonna raid the garage for bolt cutters or tin snips to break it off before unscrewing that from the board. who's gonna watch over-the-air broadcasts instead of playing PS2 with my unit anyway?


that little square is a magnet. i can't figure out what it's for. i'll investigate further once everything's out of the case, but for now all i can tell it does is hold the tray to it.


battery shot! or batteries rather. surprised there were two, quite disappointed that they're so small. no wonder it's only 3-4 hours battery life. they're so thin and light i may keep them in the design just to augment the power system and let the lower-half battery packs power the PS2. also note how thin the overall package is going to be. so much smaller than the case itself. can not WAIT to put this in a slimmer casing.

that's all for now kids. tomorrow if i don't sleep half the day away i'm gonna head to the plastics shop and get me some acrylic to mount this to. then i gotta learn how to drill holes into acrylic, lol.

[jdmlight]

Looks really pretty tiny once you get inside. A few questions:
• How's the quality of the screen? Do you have something like a PSOne screen to compare it to as a reference point?
• It looked to me like it just had composite video in and left/right audio, are there any other inputs that are obvious?
• How are the speakers?

[Rymel]

It is rather tiny, especially if you omit the batteries I may be keeping to augment overall power storage since they're so thin. I don't have a physical point of reference but it's a hot-off-the-assembly-line item so it's really the best you're gonna get for the form factor no matter what, IMO. I DO recall over the years balking at every screen that ever came out for portable use, especially by...Intec was it? I wanted one for RPGs and you couldn't read anything on those. Before tearing it down I've been playing Persona 4 on it without issues. For fun I plugged in the PS3 and got the same results as a PSOne screen on a PSX pretty much. Hard to read anything and if i scrolled the text down one click it moved the pixels in a way that the sentences became illegible unless I scrolled down again, in which case it was just very difficult to read. I wouldn't recommend it for any current gen system except the Wii. It's an odd thing considering this is supposed to be capable of 720p, but it also is odd that they only gave me composite in as you saw. I snipped the antenna earlier and flipped the board over. I'm no electronics buff but I'm gonna try to identify the leads for video and see if there might possibly be component on the board that just wasn't used. The company supposedly will be rolling out 9" & 10" models with composite in so it wouldn't be terribly off-base to guess they'd use the original 7" model as a reference design for upscaling. Here's hoping I'm right cuz I'd love component in.

I'm typing this from my iPad so I'll edit this post momentarily with a shot of the board when I get to my PC

edit: pics!

the bar holding the antenna is solid, and i couldn't find bolt cutters in my garage, so i took tin snips and broke it at the thinnest point, the joint. snip snip, good riddance to that.


the money shot! the entire board. god bless SMD electronics. the port on the right with the cable still in it leads to the front panel controls. the one above it's for the speakers, and the one to the left leads to the battery packs.


close up of power switch, av in and usb port. planning on figuring out which pin is what to connect the PS2 cable directly, and remove the usb port as it's utterly useless.


better shot of the left side. i'm not sure what that rectangle is up there (other than an IC mount point obviously), but it reinforces my belief that all of Vizio's portable TVs will be running on the same reference design if not the exact same board plus or minus a few components. i will probably be removing all 5 ports, soldering a/v wires directly to the board, and shorting the power switch so it's always on since the actual on/off switch is on the opposite end of the board. the power switch is merely an override so you don't accidentally power the unit on when it's in your bag, and find out when you're settling in for a nice long ride that the tv's dead.


right side of the board, and the only things you need to see are on the top half of it. brown button is the on/off switch, top black box is headphone out and below that is the charge jack. i will likely ignore the sound components of this board altogether, and just wire it straight to a set of mini amped speakers, now that i think about it.


the only branded IC on the entire board, and by far the largest. more than likely the controller chip for the lcd array. cut me some slack, i'm not an electronics major

so that's all right there. hopefully someone here is experienced in tracing where line-in jacks go to so i can at least solder composite video in directly, if not locate component leads somewhere (please please PLEASE exist). since i'm going to be doing a crude sandwich-board case i'm feeling good that i'll have it done by the end of april, latest.

[Rymel]

out of curiosity i put the tv back together and toyed with the front touch controls since i can't make it to a plastics shop in time today. that white strip that's glued to the lcd's metal frame is necessary for it to function. i'm guessing it's static-sensitive tape of some sort, but i'd like someone's confirmation on that. here's a shot of both parts, and the blurb i posted on the photo itself:



back shot of the touch controls. there's a tiny white SMD LED below each circle, and you can see the controller IC next to the plug. there's white tape both on the LCD's metal frame and in front of the controller board, and a hold in the board between them. i'm guessing the tape is static sensitive and the buttons activate when electricity is passed through. i'm honestly not sure and may just scrounge the entire front panel if i can't scavenge just the controller board seeing as it's taped to the front. i also may just forgo the panel entirely, and control sound externally.

i also noticed the Li-Po packs in the back total up 7.4v...let's hear it for re-purposing!

[Rymel]

i thought it's worth noting in this thread for future readers that the pack in the tv is 7.4v@2.8a, and that most (or at least 79k+ model) PS2 slims operate on 7.4v@2.5a. the tv can run off of its own pack for roughly 2.5-3 hours advertised, and i've played at least 2 hours on it myself without a problem so i can at least attest to that much. so basically if yo double up the Li-Po pack, or build yourself a higher amperage battery pack, you're pretty much good to go with minimal effort and the purchase of your 2 major items (tv + ps2 slim). minus case design, of course

i had to ask my brother to whip out his trusty multimeter and check voltages on the tv, since it takes 12v@2a in, and he was curious as to why it'd take it in if it only had a 7.4v pack. somewhere in that jumble of the controller board is a step-down transformer, but i'll be damned if i'm looking for it

[cathay88]

hm, that's interesting...