Vex Transmitter Disassembled

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Okay, so I've disassembled my extra transmitter in under 30 minutes. What I've found are a lot of wires, several boards, and buttons. All packaged neatly in one transmitter. However, upon disassembling it I now have a mess of not-so-random electrical parts on my desk. I can definitely understand how they sell these for $100. Good thing I've got Ebay.

I used four basic tools: three sizes of phillips head screwdriver and some snips.

You'll need to snip the wire that goes to the power plug-in and some glued clips. Also, when removing the trim buttons, you'll need to snip away a chunk of the outer casing, a dremel might work for this but I don't recommend it.

*WARNING: Disassembling the transmitter voids the warranty.

Here are the picture links... there's a lot of steps in between the photos.
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a1...648/Vex046.jpg
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a1...648/Vex047.jpg
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a1...648/Vex050.jpg
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a1...648/Vex053.jpg
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a1...648/Vex055.jpg
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a1...648/Vex056.jpg
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a1...648/Vex058.jpg
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a1...648/Vex059.jpg
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a1...648/Vex057.jpg

As you can see in the last photo, there is the cut away part I referred to. It was kind of a hassle to cut it out but it needed to be done. I also hope that that large board that was over the processor(?) was just a protective piece, I had to cut it off to get to the very last screw hidden underneath, otherwise I can probably re-solder it back on.

Again, don't do this without prior knowledge of what you're doing. Tomorrow I'm gong to mount this onto some plexiglass and a project casing. I'll customize the buttons/joysticks later.