My side project: TakeItApart.com — Turn screws. Void warranties. Open minds.

[tomkinsc]

A group of college friends and I recently started TakeItApart.com.

It's a website where anyone can see or share information on how to take things apart. We're just getting going, but we're hoping the tech savvy will use it to share real-world examples of engineering and industrial design concepts, and that everyone will use it to easily learn how things work, which internal components can be replaced for repair, or if any components are good salvage items for new projects. We're hoping to help everyone hold on to gadgets longer, and (maybe) save a few from entering landfills. Plus, I just enjoy seeing how things work! All of the guides on the site are photo and video-based, and can include text descriptions as well as hover-over notes for components, and annotations that mention which tools are needed to take something apart. Creating a new guide is as easy as uploading a bulk selection of images, and clicking "Continue" a few times. Basic image editing like rotation and cropping can be done on the site, and it's easy to include image annotations and tool lists.

TakeItApart all started because I like to disassemble things to see how they work. As I took something apart, I would snap photos so that I would have a record of the steps I would need to to put the item back together. When I was finished I had sets of photos left over, and wanted to share them with the world on the off chance they would be interesting or helpful to someone. The response to the photos was overwhelmingly positive  , and there was much more interest than I anticipated. People are keen on seeing how things work. We've also been hosting booths at Maker Faires, and providing e-waste items for people to take apart. We want everyone to know that it is ok to turn screws and get their hands dirty. (Come visit us at the Bay Area Maker Faire, and take something apart!)

Anyway, check our TakeItApart if you have a moment, and we'd love any feedback you may have!
If you have the urge to take out your screwdriver set, consider making a disassembly guide to share with the world.  That would be super-cool!

Here's the link: https://www.takeitapart.com.

[electronics man]

Very nice, well done

[calexanian]

Looks good! 

[FrankenPC]

This is PORRRNNN!!!!  I Love it!

[FrankenPC]

RE: BaoFeng: I can't believe how much engineering goes into something that costs so little:
http://www.takeitapart.com/guide/9

[rexxar]

Awesome! I've been looking for something like this for a long time. 

[tomkinsc]

RE: BaoFeng: I can't believe how much engineering goes into something that costs so little:
http://www.takeitapart.com/guide/9

And not just on the electronic/RF side either. It has an impressively tight mechanical design. Aside from tight tolerances, the integration is impressive. The support for the battery clip fulcrum is cast right into the RF/EMI shield. It's clear that the engineers behind it put effort into the design, rather than just slapping an enclosure around a board and keypad.

[PedroDaGr8]

I liked the nanodrop teardown considering we just got one of those at work.

[dexters_lab]

Nice site 

thanks for linking

[krivx]

Would be nice to acknowledge Dave, since he coined that phrase. It's actually his catchphrase.

I really don't think you can credit Dave with coining "Take it apart"...

[Joule Thief]

Would be nice to acknowledge Dave, since he coined that phrase. It's actually his catchphrase.

As long as he doesn't make his website dark grey with a yellow border ... I think tomkinsc is safe !!

[grumpydoc]

Nice site. I do have a few suggestions though.

The quality of some of the photos is not great.

You need more (i.e some) commentary on each step.

Lists of tools needed would be good.

To be fair I do note that you said in your opening post that tear-downs could "include text descriptions as well as hover-over notes for components, and annotations that mention which tools are needed to take something apart" but I don't see that very much. Most of the guides are just photos with no commentary at all and some of the ones which do add additional information do so only very minimally.

You mention that you want to document "which internal components can be replaced for repair, or if any components are good salvage items for new projects" - again I don't see this for any of the existing guides. Sadly for modern electronics that might be "nothing" or "not very much".

All of the stuff you have on there is pretty old as well.

I'm sure you've had a look at iFixit - possibly you don't want to be just a smaller clone of their website but I'd have a good look at how they approach their guides.

Who is your target audience BTW - electronics geeks or the general public? You need to decide on that and stick to it because it will have a bearing on what appliances are good for your site to disassemble and what level of information will be relevant.

[tomkinsc]

Nice site. I do have a few suggestions though.

The quality of some of the photos is not great.

You need more (i.e some) commentary on each step.

Lists of tools needed would be good.

To be fair I do note that you said in your opening post that tear-downs could "include text descriptions as well as hover-over notes for components, and annotations that mention which tools are needed to take something apart" but I don't see that very much. Most of the guides are just photos with no commentary at all and some of the ones which do add additional information do so only very minimally.

You mention that you want to document "which internal components can be replaced for repair, or if any components are good salvage items for new projects" - again I don't see this for any of the existing guides. Sadly for modern electronics that might be "nothing" or "not very much".

All of the stuff you have on there is pretty old as well.

I'm sure you've had a look at iFixit - possibly you don't want to be just a smaller clone of their website but I'd have a good look at how they approach their guides.

Who is your target audience BTW - electronics geeks or the general public? You need to decide on that and stick to it because it will have a bearing on what appliances are good for your site to disassemble and what level of information will be relevant.

Thanks for the feedback! Your observations about the content age and quality are spot-on. We've been focused on the website software for so long that content had taken a back seat for a while. We uploaded some old pics so there would be some content up, but I certainly agree that it can be improved. Now that we're live there will be more of a focus on richly-annotated guides with higher image quality. It is a community website though, so everyone is welcome to submit teardown guides and show me how it is done. 

We're not discriminating about our audience, and we don't have a strict target. Since this is a labor of love for us, it's more about developing the platform and then allowing it to evolve to be maximally useful. We've been to iFixit, yes, but weren't crazy about their interface (it has improved since we started, but there are some things that still bother us), how they are all about selling products, and how they seemingly scraped a product list and made a bunch of empty product pages without any real content. The earlier incarnation of TakeItApart(.net) was a wordpress blog, and got started around the same time as iFixit (if not earlier), so I've been watching the space for a while. From reading the articles Kyle has written for the popular press it seems that iFixit has good intentions, but we think there is room for a second player in the space. I'd personally like to see TakeItApart guides become more of an educational resource and focus on the engineering and industrial design concepts behind devices, in the style of Dave's excellent teardowns.

[TVman]

Two more thumbs up for you!!!