

Teardown: DDC Mobile X900 - SanderMak
https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/teardown-ddc-mobile-x900/all

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pling
The thing that scares me is that as an EE in a previous life, I've seen worse
things come out of one man bespoke engineering companies. One thing that
sticks in my mind was a PLC replacement for some old relay logic in a factory.
Rather than use a proper PLC, they glued some relays can first down to the
bottom of a shielded box with hot snot and drove it with a BASIC stamp
soldered to some veroboard. The whole thing packed in one day (duff relay) and
I was contracted to fix it. Had to write the entire unit off and start again.

This thing was controlling what I can only describe as a giant maiming machine
that would kill everyone for several feet if it went wrong.

Also one reason why a lot of "maker" contraptions scare the shit out of me.
2cm frim certain death and electrocution a lot of the time.

~~~
voltagex_
I wouldn't pin it all on the maker community - fake iPhone chargers are just
as bad

~~~
pling
They're not quite as terrible as the recent press makes out. Prior to the hype
around this we had nearly 20 years of low quality wall wart switch mode
supplies. Very few people got hurt and very few people do today. Even if they
completely burn out its a low risk.

Conversely my official Lenovo T400 charger has a 90-110v AC potential between
its virtual ground and true ground which occasionally gives me a tingly
finger.

The maker community though have no basic electrical safety knowledge as a
whole and are concerned with making it work, not making it work safely.

~~~
voltagex_
>The maker community though have no basic electrical safety knowledge as a
whole and are concerned with making it work, not making it work safely.

Ouch. What are you basing this on? What could be done to improve the
situation?

~~~
pling
Various observations over the last few years on projects that have been
posted. I'll usually flag up anything dangerous with some constructive help on
why it is dangerous and how to make it safe.

Simply education. Every electronics book should open with an electrical safety
section as well. Know thy enemy.

Having myself been zapped a couple of times, once due to faulty equipment and
once due to idiocy on my part, I can assure you its worth the time.

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userbinator
Similarly, here is a $12 phone, again a design with only 2 main ICs, but with
far fewer features (although it does have Bluetooth and an ARM...):
[http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?page_id=3107](http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?page_id=3107)

The mention of "XCPU RISC" in the datasheet led nowhere but RDA's site, and I
suspect that it's some sort of MIPS clone. They also have an ARM-based SoC,
the RDA8810.

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The_Ace
I love these Chinese crap phones. The effort spent in order to optimize the
system to cut the BOM is truly astonishing.

~~~
joezydeco
Anyone else notice the ribs in the battery cover that were ground down by hand
to make the cell fit snugly?

[https://cdn.sparkfun.com/assets/learn_tutorials/2/5/1/SFE_00...](https://cdn.sparkfun.com/assets/learn_tutorials/2/5/1/SFE_0046.jpg)

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Cthulhu_
I can't be the only one that wants a cellphone made out of pot metal.

~~~
chiph
Phone, flashlight, and self-defense tool, all in one!

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mkesper
Resumé: If all you need is a cellphone with no frills and the weight and shape
of a Motorola brick phone… the X900 is for you.

~~~
greedy_buffer
No frills?? Dual SIM and TWO keypads!

~~~
dholowiski
And a 320x240 pixels camera. That's over 70,000 pixels! Imagine how many
photos you could fit on a 32gb memory card!

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DanBC
Here is a teardown of a $7 phone. It "looks a bit like a Nokia". The vendor
applied a "Samsung" faceplate because she'd run out of all the others.

[http://wiki.hacdc.org/index.php/$7_cell_phone](http://wiki.hacdc.org/index.php/$7_cell_phone)

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untothebreach
Wow. I had a really shitty commute this morning, and this just made my morning
so much better.

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maaarghk
This is genuinely gorgeous. The best bit is the Nokia badge!

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yitchelle
Here is a serious question, I wonder if DCC (the phone's company) makes any
money from this wonder of electronic enigneering?

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jng
What's the price of the beautiful little monster? It would help complete the
awesome picture.

~~~
raphman_
As mentioned in the blog post's comments, Nate paid ~ 28 USD for this. Another
comment links to Alibaba Express, in case you want to buy a similar one:

[http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Luxury-Mobile-
Phone-X900-Flas...](http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Luxury-Mobile-
Phone-X900-Flashlight-Loud-Speaker-2-0-Color-Screen-Camera-Bluetooth-
MP3-MP4-FM/1262109605.html)

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szatkus
What a monstrosity! I like it :)

