Name that Ware January 2017

The Ware for January 2017 is shown below:

This close-up view shows about a third of the circuit board. If it turns out to be too difficult to guess from the clues shown here, I’ll update this post with a full-board photo; but I have a feeling long-time players of Name that Ware might have too easy a time with this one.

19 Responses to “Name that Ware January 2017”

  1. Jacob Grigg says:

    Car remote or garage door opener?

  2. Wouter says:

    Wow Bunnie you’re certainly over-estimating me for one.

    That chip at the top looks like a large-ish serial memory, couple that with the conformal coating and I’m going to take a wild guess at data logger, maybe shock & temperature.

  3. Adrian says:

    Key fob for a car or garage would be my first guess as well. Looking around the interwebs, I think it’s from a car.

    – conformal coating to protect from moisture
    – EEPROM and MCU, point toward some attempt of cryptography
    – Big inductor probably belongs to a boost converter to run from a small button battery

  4. Adam says:

    Going to guess an MSR data logger. Blue button, and they often seem to dip their PCBs for environmental protection.

  5. Adrian says:

    I wonder if Bunnie with “I have a feeling long-time players of Name that Ware might have too easy a time” is referring back to the mystery ware from last August.

    Could this be from an RFID reader?

  6. rasz_pl says:

    IC on the top is Fortune Semiconductor FS8205A Dual N-channel Enhancement Mode Power Mosfet, used in liion protection circuits. = thins thing takes raw liion batteries.

    its a BMS for something heavy duty. At first I was all about electric cars because of conformal coating, but that switch doesnt belong deep inside car battery pack.

    Power tool battery would be a good guess, switch actuates charge status leds etc, except those dont have a need to DC/DC

    That leaves me with a Power Bank.

    • Jimmyjo says:

      Heavy conformal coating, and a philips logo on the main controller, form factor.. everything points to an electric razor. Could also be toothbrush, but they don’t bother with conformal for tootobrush these days.

      • Adrian says:

        This one looks awefully close
        http://www.terapeak.com/worth/philips-norelco-7110x-electric-shaver-repair-part-motherboard-main-board-pcb/301940153129/
        Philips Norelco 7110x
        Same buttons and LED layout. There’s also a Philips logo on the big chip.

        • Adrian says:

          And here’s the reference on Bunnie’s blog:
          https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=304

          • bunnie says:

            Heh. Yep…my replacement shaver lasted 8 years, and finally gave up its ghost so I took it apart and name that ware’d it. The electronics are really similar to the previous generation.

            You can see the whole board at:

            http://bunniefoo.com/ntw/ntw_jan_2017_ext.jpg

            Unlike the first one, this one didn’t nearly catch fire — seems the battery just died of old age.

            Getting a replacement shaver was a bit of an adventure in itself. Apparently, electric shavers aren’t popular in Singapore. You can get every variety of mobile phone accessory but I could only find one shop in Bugis that had an electric shaver, and when I brought it home it was DOA.

            I did some analysis and noticed it was manufactured in 2013, so the Li-Ion battery in it was probably self-discharged and the secondary protection circuitry had kicked in. The circuitry in the shaver didn’t seem to have the trickle charge mode to revive such a deeply discharged cell, as hooking it up to a bench supply showed zero current draw after a brief blip of activity from the shaver on plug-in. I left it plugged in overnight just in case a trickle mode was active; no dice.

            So I returned it, and when they offered an exchange I knew that most likely their whole stock was bad. So I had the lady test the exchange for me and sure enough that was bad. She opened yet another shaver; same problem. Either nobody had bought a shaver from that store for several years, or they got a load of old inventory from the distributor. At least I got my money back.

            So last week I visited NYC and tried to find a retail store that had a decent shaver, and after walking an hour, couldn’t find one that wasn’t also in a sketchy tourist-trap electronics shop. So I ended up using Amazon Prime to deliver one to my hotel. Who would have thought it’d be so hard to get a replacement shaver…

            • pelrun says:

              30 minutes ago I had my Philips shaver die with half my face done. A friend mentioned a similar thing happening to him earlier today as well.

              And then I see this.

  7. Carl Smith says:

    Yet again the ware was solved before I even got here. :(

  8. There are lot’s of eage eyed people here.

  9. itsthatidiotagain says:

    Looks like a laptop battery control board to me.. typical sort of layout, and the usual conformal snot covering it. Typically they contain some, all or none of the following…
    8-bit Microprocessor (M37516 or similar), 8 pin memory chip (24Cxx), Gauge Chip (4497 or similar) , AFE chip (BA3161 or similar), and a crop of caps, current sense resistors, a thermistor some inductors and … lots of silicone snot.

  10. Sykophantes says:

    Is there a way to remove this conformal coating to get to the components ?
    What works ? (Acetone maybe?)
    I also have a car fuel injection computer which was dumped in some silicone goo (to keep humidity away). I would like to recover some SMD components from there since they seem extended temperature range but have not found a way to remove that goo. Sugestions welcome.

    • Michael says:

      It’s usually reasonably easy to scratch off mechanically. I’ve used a dental pick with success when repairing faulty car electronics.