Nicholas Ouimet

Did you guys abandon this tear down project? It’s been a while…

Why does iFixit call double sided sticky tape glue? Isn’t glue generally a liquid? Technically speaking for example, the iPad battery and logic board are held together with some industrial strength adhesive tape. They don’t take a bottle of glue and squirt it around to secure the battery or logic board. The battery in an iPhone is held in place with the same double stick adhesive, but it has a pull release tab. The battery cells on a MacBook Pro top case aren’t “glued” in place, but rather they are secured with the adhesive strips. These AirPods Max appear (from the photos) to use the same black gasketing adhesive tape that is used to secure iPhone displays. (Adhesive tape securing the plastic ear cup part to the aluminum housing)

Unlikely. The microphones in the enclosure work with the A8 to provide the best sound for the woofer and 7 tweeters. This is their adaptive EQ/spatial sound. This isn’t a dumb speaker like SONOS or regular Bluetooth speaker. If it didn’t have an adaptive EQ/Spatial sound, you probably could. What you are looking for is a HomePod mini with an AUX out jack, and they don’t exist. Closest thing is an AirPort Express, but it doesn’t have Siri or a touch surface. Basically Apple needs to make something like Amazon’s Echo Input device.

Has anyone figured out a non destructive way inside? The fabric/mesh can be removed and reinstalled with out damage as can the brains, but there is no way I know of to access the speakers, power supply or amplifier board.

Anyone figure out a non destructible way into this? No easy truck discovered 2 years later?

Anyone know what epoxy is used to secure the metal frame to the plastic cover? It's a green epoxy, but that's all I know. The same green epoxy is also used to secure the top case plastic to the metal frame

What camera does iFixit use for the photos?

Step 4 shows how to clean the old thermal paste off the processor. The rubber squares are thermal pads. Take care not to rip or damage them, or they will need to be replaced.

That is a thermal pad, not thermal paste.

Why would you ever need to remove the heatsink? Again I don't understand how you rate these on repairability. They aren't meant to be fixed. Would you like for EVERY IC to be socketed, every component to be through hole for easy soldering, a bottom cover held on with screws?

I mean a heatsink is a piece of metal. It isn't going to fail.