SanDisk Sansa Express Disassembled
It’s always interesting to take a look inside of gadgets so once again I cracked open one of SanDisk’s latest creations, the Sansa Express. While there is nothing inside that is user replaceable, it may come in handy one day if you break or jab a button. Some industrious readers have been using these guide to buy broken player off of eBay for pennies on the dollar to pull together parts- fixing them and reselling them.
The disassembly is simple with 4 screws and a snap to the entire process. The ribbon cable may be difficult to new comers. Deataching it requires you to flip up a little brown bar over the cable with a flat head screw driver. You will understand when you see it. Other than that, follow the chronologically ordered pics and you will be on your way to Sansa guts.
Comments
JDGAFFLIN on July 11, 2007 3:35 PM
Your like a mad scientist, 'ZO. Good Work.
music811 on July 11, 2007 5:05 PM
Be careful not to rip the little plastic piece off the OLED display. I did that, and couldn't get it back in properly.
autohak on July 12, 2007 1:09 PM
Awesome disassembly!
This player looks like the perfect candidate to invisibly hide in the original controls of an old car. Enough removable storage to be useful, and an SD slot can be hidden anywhere. The small display is a plus; it'll fit behind the small original displays of the era, and only be visible when in use. The only potentially tricky part is re-routing the player's buttons to the original stereo faceplate's inputs, but that becomes trivial if you can access the contacts for the MP3 player's switches.
Which leads me to one question -- on pic #12, what's behind that plastic shield, and can the buttons be accessed without damaging the buttons/contacts? (I see some SMT components on the ribbon cable - if they're just to power the backlighting of the controls, that's fine, but if they multiplex the 4 inputs into 2 bits, that could mean I'd have to get behind the controls... I also see two black rubber insulating pads and one larger greyish-black insulator covering the little ribbon cable - do they hide screws or clips that separate the buttons from the grey plastic insulator/backplate?)
EnzoTen on July 13, 2007 12:24 AM
That is a really good idea...
I didnt look but i dont think that there are screws behind the black rubber pads- there is not enough room for a screw. It is probably snapped in there... however... im also pretty sure that there are micro switches behind there not contact pads. If you check out the review video in the next article you can hear how loud those switches are.
xb180 on September 2, 2007 2:46 AM
WICH PART IS TEH BIOS?