EEVblog #547 - Dumpster Phone Teardown

[mariush]

How do I get started firing up those standard LCDs?  I have some arduinos kicking ariund.
Tutorials and data sheets links anyone?

In addition to Stonent's comment, see newbiehack.com's series of videos about microcontrollers and lcd displays :

http://newbiehack.com/VideoClipsList.aspx?category=LCD

Click on each link , then click on those pictures with skeleton head to see the video.

Or go directly to the youtube channel for the whole series with microcontrollers :

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE72E4CFE73BD1DE1

[DutchGert]

What are those rectangular pads on the Cisco board (from 14:17)? I also seen them on a Intel Ethernet board but what are they for? There are not grounded, no via's in them, just floating square pads with solder mask on them.

yeah wondering the same thing, only thing I can think of is that this is cheaper for the pcb manufacturer because they don't have to edge all that copper away, if you produce hundreds of thousands of these pcb's that can save quite some money on the edging fluids. And if there is a mistake in the pcb you can add some fixes on these pads but then naaaaah.

Anyone?

[amyk]

The Polycoms are actually pretty complicated from a software prospective, upon bootup they will grab provisioning details via DHCP option 66, connect to an FTP/TFTP server and download their firmware, flash themselves, reboot, download their config and register to whatever PABX / SIP provider you are using (most commercial sip phones do this regardless) The Polycoms also have multiple stages of firmware, suggesting an OS + app so perhaps something like Vxworks or a linux kernel. They also have a built in webserver for reconfiguration and the ability to change VLAN tagging in the switch.. so alot of stuff to program from scratch.

I could go on about these phones for hours but I need to get some work done

AFAIR they run Vxworks and there's a serial port on the board somewhere you can play with. (I never got around to RE'ing one a while back...)

[greatal]

Hi Dave
About this time tear down you always can salvage some ram and Flash chips from IP phones to upgrade your Linux base router or other devices
Good luck

[jh15]

Thanks for the lcd replies. I can't imagine the number of them in our town's electronic waste dropoff day tomorrow. Don't think they've had one for 3 years... Now I'll have to look at the stack of printers I am going to toss for a lcd patient.

[Stonent]

Thanks for the lcd replies. I can't imagine the number of them in our town's electronic waste dropoff day tomorrow. Don't think they've had one for 3 years... Now I'll have to look at the stack of printers I am going to toss for a lcd patient.

Make sure to post back with pics and or video of your findings.

[Atreidae]

AFAIR they run Vxworks and there's a serial port on the board somewhere you can play with. (I never got around to RE'ing one a while back...)

Its quite possibly the accessory port, as as far as I know its serial. Look for a little 5 pin female header accessible from the back of the phone.
The phone Tx's Serial data on this line to control headsets and the like.

Might be worth me trying to look at those ports at some stage..

[amyk]

AFAIR they run Vxworks and there's a serial port on the board somewhere you can play with. (I never got around to RE'ing one a while back...)

Its quite possibly the accessory port, as as far as I know its serial. Look for a little 5 pin female header accessible from the back of the phone.
The phone Tx's Serial data on this line to control headsets and the like.

Might be worth me trying to look at those ports at some stage..

Not that one, it's not accessible without removing the back case as it's on the main PCB itself.