Gadgetory

everyone today we're doing something a bit different we're doing a mouse teardown slash kind of review the theta is Logitech sent us their power play magnetic resonance charging mice and we already reviewed this one this is the G 900 body now named G 903 because it's a little bit different it supports the power play wireless charging surface that Logitech introduced but as far as the actual mouse the ergonomics the buttons the responsiveness all of that the Wireless it's all the same in terms of our feelings of it as the original review and the original review was very positive of the G 900 so if you're curious about the mouse specifically the 903 or the 900 that content is already on the channel you can check that review so today we're doing a teardown we're gonna take apart the 903 and hopefully some of this power play charging mat which allows for the wireless charging through the surface of the mat transfer it into the mouse so that's what we're looking at and I'll talk a bit about how it works and battery life and things like that as we go through it before that this coverage is brought to you by the core G 21 enclosure from thermal take a $70 case with 2 4 millimeter thick tempered glass side panels and a power supply shroud with top mounted SSD sleds learn more at the link in the description below so for the basics on what this is doing we've got an oscillating AM field it charges one coil and then that induces current in other coils so that would be the one between the mouse and the charging station or the powerplay mat that's how its charging it uses magnetic resonance so there's a magnetic field from the primary coil and that radiates equally in all directions so that primary coil is going to end up matte as we understand it radiating in all directions means that it'll be the strongest at the center of wherever that coil is charging which is the center of the mat and then you lose some of the power and efficiency out towards the edges but Logitech has built this in a way that it's not larger than negative charging effect unless maybe you were to try and make it negatively charged at the very edge and as a note digit key has a great chart of the Chi chargers which are used for phones and resonance efficiency so we'll put that up and you can check their article out on digit keys website that shows the and its efficiency so resonant its downside is that it's a lot less efficient and that's because of flux leakage efficiency is roughly 30% at 2 centimeters in an optimal system and this mouse is gonna be a lot closer than 2 centimeters but it basically becomes useless once you start lifting off but realistically you're not lifting off more than it's using in normal use anyway so what Logitech trades in efficiency they make up for inconvenience you've ultimately got a mouse charger in the mousepad makes a lot of sense Corsair is trying to do one of these pretty soon as well they were showing a prototype at Computex but the core idea here basically the mousepad is an extra hundred bucks so you pay a hundred dollars for this and then you can throw a mousepad on top of it they provided these as long as it's not too thick and it's not metal it'll work in terms of charging keeping the mouse centered is going to be best technically it's still charges toward the outer edges but it's faster in the middle we don't know exactly how much faster we don't have this those numbers from Logitech and charging duration so using the mouse in testing if you're just using the mouse on the mousepad it basically doesn't discharge and doesn't charge as far as you are concerned obviously the battery's still being used and it's still being charged it's just basically equal rates so that's good it also tends to stick between 80 and 95 percent by design for battery charge when when you're not using the mouse that's what it'll go to and that's just because as you burn through more charge cycles on a battery that are more abusive the battery dies faster so from that standpoint it makes sense to try and target 80 to 95 percent rather than push really hard for the last couple percent and heat up the battery and limit its life which is a problem with phones as well Android phones now have different smart charging solutions that tend to slow them down for the amount of charge that goes through towards the upper limit so we're gonna start with the matte because I think that's the most interesting the mouse itself will tear down as well but those are all pretty much the same once you get inside so let's start the matte I think the thin here first all maybe we can show this you can actually see the the whatever I guess that's probably cabling underneath or copper wire or something like that I'm not not an expert on inductive or magnetic resonance chargers so I don't know what they consist of other than coils but you can see the outline here so being again not an expert in this type of thing my guess based on just kind of looking at this is that this is going to be the optimal charging zone because you can see the rectangular outline and on the smaller one that's dead center of that thing so that's what I'm guessing is best for charging performance now speaking with logitech as you get to the edges of the pad it will charge less efficiently and that does coincide with what we do know of this type of charging this isn't a new design by the way magnetic resonance charging has been a lie around since Nikola Tesla was alive so it's pretty old but if you sit the mouse out here towards the edges you might be able to make it lose charge if you start like using it right here with max DPI with a one-inch movement you could probably make it discharge faster than it charges but that's not a real use case so I think we were kind of playing around with this earlier trying to figure out how to if we needed to slice it open or if we could just peel it or what basically this is the module for the powerplay charging so it's got USB in here that needs to be plugged into your computer that power is both the charging circuit which just runs on USB 2.0 spec power voltage and current and all that same spec as USB 2 and then it's also the wireless transmitter so your mouse speaks with this hub directly and then that just goes down the cable into your computer for the actual input and playing around earlier it looks like this will just kind of peel and haven't actually taken it apart yet but didn't start peeling it there's a little plate in there like an acrylic or polycarbonate or something so let's just let's peel this the rest of the way off Logitech I'm sorry but you know that this is what we do we get some help from one of these just a bunch of adhesive holding it on some additional side notes on this if you want to use it on a metal table or metal service you'll want a thick layer of something underneath it maybe another large mousepad or something like that it won't work on those surfaces just because of how the charging circuit works charging the mouse by cable is still possible just like normally it takes a couple hours just like normally maybe maybe two hours or so and charging by the mat if you were to leave the mouse just like this it I think I don't remember exactly I think it's something like 12 hours 14 hours a little less efficient if you need to use the mouse and let it charge it probably just a normal use takes about four days to go from zero to relatively full and that's during use so certainly not a fast charging solution but it's not supposed to be it's just supposed to be a a sustaining solution to keep the mouse alive while you use it so that you never have to actively go plug it in to charge it which they were successful in it actually does work in that way works pretty well a bit expensive it's bit of a premium right now for this stuff because it's new and you got a charge cover R&D or new product but hopefully this will trickle outward other companies or other products later on also this mouse pad or the power play mat will work with anything that has does this one have it right now so here's a magnet that's not the charging piece this is the charging piece so these are basically Universal you can take one of these from Logitech it's not gonna work in every Mouse the mouse needs to have the capability to work wirelessly and with the mat but in the future if you buy Logitech mouse with this form factor and one of these in it let's say a mouse that's not out yet maybe the G 1003 you buy one of those it'll work with this mat as well so theoretically the mats about one time purchase but like any company of course Logitech could change things and maybe they decide they want to upgrade it which point who knows maybe it'll lose that compatibility but for now that's just how it works the plate that's in here might just be for rigidity I'm thinking so here's you can see there's your top rubber layer which is covered again by one of these and it's a it's really it's it's real like rubber you're not gonna you're not gonna move stuff around on it so that sits on there and then underneath it we've got what I'm calling acrylic I don't think that's actually what it is but some kind of clear plastic polycarbonate type acrylic whatever material in here and then the under rubber which just holds it in place let's get the top off and technically I have to send this one back to Logitech haha I mean I don't know if they'll have any use for it like I said Logitech sorry I would have done this with the retail sample anyway but this is some unique content other people haven't done yet and maybe we can learn something maybe we won't I have no idea find out if we don't then oops if we do that awesome there's your outline just all a bunch of adhesive this is basically garbage now so I'll move that to the side is there anything on the bottom no okay rip rip headphone users also rift power play mat there's power cable let's just glue it on there huh yes that's just glued on there all I want to know is what's this outline I'm guessing it's just like a copper cable like a trace almost like I said I don't know anything about this type of circuit so this thing right here that's there's your outline where's our where does the power plug up here so where is that exactly that's right here so how does is it like connected right there and then go in that's pretty cool I don't know so this is why I don't know like when I recoil and I'm reading about these things is it like an inductor coil like a choke where you've got just a coil of a copper actual coil which would maybe be in the powerplay module or is it a coil like does this constitute a coil maybe someone in the comments can tell us if you've got an ie background or something like that I think this is just copper wire but I don't actually know so anyway eventually we come in over here and create this circuit now I don't think we're really gonna realistically be able to get through this without just using like scissors or something because and that black adhesive is crazy strong I don't think it'll really teach us anything anyway is there any thunder there if you want to look into this thing more I don't know if this helps you at all but we've got a part number for the PCB right there three PC R zero one 865 a it's probably a custom PCB I don't know that you'll find anything out there there's the rest of it this is revision 0.72 so this is I should note this is actually all is a prototype so that's by this number might iterate to 1.0 for the retail product but either way that's what that looks like for now I'm not going to try and dig more into it at the moment let's look at should we try and get into this thing I don't know if we were live streaming I'd ask chat actually and I know what chat would say chat would say yes mm-hmm okay let's just let's peel this back and make a judgement call if there's nothing really under there another screws okay you know what that's gonna be easy let's just do that there's your power cable what's left of it anyway the ribbon cable nothing special in here that's just the shell and here's your USB arm there you go I know that name stm32 l1 series is from st.com official source the latest addition to st's l1 series the the one we're looking at is the quote perfect fit for applications that require a minimum processing power and ultra low power consumption at a budget price or is there there's your LED output you can see the diffuser plate this is kind of cool they've got the defuser here a little cover plate for it so your diffuser plate cover and I think I got on backwards but you got the idea and then that shines through it to the Logitech logo and where does this hover over so this connects like that and this part came out backwards didn't it this goes like that I think yes that goes there and this covers okay so there's your LED panel I think digital digital RGB LEDs there's a controller that's probably capable of controlling it and whatever else this thing does which is basically charging and a wireless reception I'm not sure if that actually if that piece controls it or if it's one of these other ones all right let's look at let's look at the mouse which one G 903 or G 703 I don't want to do both and I know three is more expensive this uh this one's 150 I think MSRP which is what the G 900 regionally was the G 900 is now $100 so if you like that Mouse when we reviewed it but didn't want to pay 150 it's a good price now I'm still personally using the G 900 by the way I like that Mouse a lot and this is that Mouse that's that's a little more this is a G 403 me actually I think you can see it in the body so this is just the G 403 except for the charging station this one's gonna be much more of a pain to take apart and recline I'm gonna get back together very easily if at all taking mice apart definitely inadvisable if only because these Teflon feet you're never gonna get them back on the way they came off it's not gonna be a satisfying fine user experience you can buy replacements though and you could also do a better job than I'm doing the earth to like preserve them if you wanted to I mean obviously you basically just stick it onto like you try and pull the whole thing off I'm like well I just split it in half and then stick it on to a service and just reapply it as soon as you can and it'll be fine I've done it before on mice that I actually used okay so I need to actually use one of these things right just back here that one's salvageable yes they are captive screws cool okay so we only had to destroy every sticker and poly or uh like Teflon foot on the underside but we did get in there so it looks like is this the battery there's your battery lithium polymer those are kind of more like gel packets as opposed to lithium ion let's disconnect that all right cool so battery's disconnected William polymer battery for those curious if you ever want to use their service this thing so this is where the tear downs become kind of useful as opposed to just being cool if you ever want to use our services it's really not that hard to get into now you've seen me go through it you know where the hidden screws are so you don't have to destroy as much stuff these can definitely be placed back on there I mean some of them like this one I did a I was more careful with and you could put the bat back on there and it would be basically good as new I mean that's really not Pat so you could do a better job that I did here and still have a functional Mouse afterwards and we'll have a functional Mouse just the little sock these on a surface but if you have to get in here to replace the battery because your battery is maybe you've used it for four or five years now at this point and you don't want to buy another one you'd rather buy battery if you can find it the part number Shen's em so they're in China Shenzhen why you one zero to nine eight - one five zero zero four and we've got a couple other numbers on here as well but let's just get a let's just got a shot of the battery and then if anyone wants there's other numbers you can just freeze frame it and use those so that you can replace it if you're able to find a replacement that is the same size actually we should measure to the size - all right so if you can't find this exact one and you're wondering I wonder if another one exists out there that's the same size because of the size does actually impact whether you can use it or not on this so roughly 50 by 35 give yourself a millimeter to breathe and then this is the more interesting bit another arm stm32 l/100 so Logitech is able to save some money by ordering a ton of those and using that in everything so the same one I think that we saw any power play mat and we've got some power hooked up to a metal plate which is where does that sit here's that part of the coil or is that part of the that looks like it's maybe part of the coil so this thing right here which connects to the power play module just every time your power play sounds like poker gambling or something that connects through here metal to metal over here and this is hooked up to what looks like a ground or common and then there's your power line which I don't know if that's 5 volts maybe there's your what looks like a 5 volt and a common or a ground and that's going into what else we have ribbon cable goes into the top portion so the ribbon cable is connecting up here which i think is sending your data back and forth the mass of these mice those scroll wheels on these Logitech mice are pretty cool they've got this switch right here that depresses you push that button which it's obviously already pushed right now there you go so I push it and it will I think apply force to this thing right here yes that mechanism so this mechanism is pretty you push this button and it engages so right now we've got the very tactile response and it's stopped I mean it does one take at a time if you can see down here through the camera there's a ton of spokes in there so it's got a lot of points of engagement it engages on each one of the spokes so those spokes are you get POV on that and then each one engages and then if we do this as many of you probably know the model tech mice it does the hyper scroll which I actually use this a lot for scrolling through your spreadsheets you just kind of hit the button to toggle between them and then that gets you to the bottom of page real quick so pretty cool stuff but that's a that's loosely how that works sorry what the switching is engaging this piece of this black plastic here underneath the clear plastic moves it's like a shoe so I push that you see a move so right now we're engaged we're engaging the break and let's release it is your hyper scroll I'm not gonna click it down this time just push partway and what's happening is over here on this side you see a metal bar and that bar goes across and what's engaging this I mean it's it's basically like throwing a stick into into the spokes of a bike that what's that is what's engaging us right yeah that's pretty cool so here's the see the plot this is the plastic shoe I was pointing out so when I push that button it's engaged yes I push the button the shoe is releasing tension from the metal bar which brings the middle of our backwards and when the middle bar goes that direction it's dragging against scroll wheel on the inside right there pretty cool I'm not gonna take the rest of this apart I really it's just we've done it before it's a lot of work it never goes back together and you don't really learn anything special other than what we've already done without more of an engineering background in this kind of thing so so there's your scroll wheel the other buttons were contained here so switches for these buttons are on these PCBs it's me one per set of switches they are on run switches like normally a lot of tech technically doesn't doesn't tell us that information because they could always change the pliers they don't wanna be locked in but they would choose one with the same spec so fifty million clicks or whatever it is these days twenty to fifty million depending on what you're looking at for the mouse but yeah I think that's it so let's uh let's leave it at that for this one pretty cool it's you know it's getting fun to do these like the point is like I said sometimes it's just cool it's just cool to see what's underneath sometimes you learn something the battery replacement information might be useful for someone but ultimately it's just you know I was curious how that hyper scroll system worked I've looked in the past I don't remember figuring it out last time because I think I might have stopped last time I took a part of a Logitech mouse because I didn't want to completely destroy it cuz I was actually using it so this one's a sacrificial lamb but yeah pretty cool see how it just just entirely mechanical little break that shoots into a spoke so I think that's it for this one you can subscribe for more we do tear downs like this on stuff fairly regularly video cards are the main one where we look at the VRMs and talk about how the BRM design works things like that subscribe for that otherwise patreon.com slash camera's nexus helps out directly and as always articles and things like that on gamers nexus dotnet shirts gamers exodus at squarespace.com and logitech I'll get this back together I I'll let you guys handle the the feet and as far as the power play pad sorry but hey it was cool so thanks for watching I'll see you all next time you