De-meh-lition: JBL Micro Speaker Dock

Okay. Fine. I wasn't even going to spend my time dismantling this massive waste of plastic, but since you people requested it, here I am, with a screwdriver set and one JBL Micro Speaker Dock, prepared to reveal its innards.

I feel like we should go into this one with a goal. Let's see if we can pull out the lightning plug that's in the top and have it for something useful. Like a phone charger that doesn't anchor your phone nearly perpendicular to the ground.

But first, we need to get this turd open like a sixth grader dissecting an owl pellet.

So far, the only obvious way in that doesn't involve a hammer is the battery compartment underneath.

Seriously, why do people make devices that aren't rechargable anymore? The battery lobby? At least there's screws under here.

By the way, if you do any sort of electronics tinkering and you don't have magnetic screwdrivers, they're definitely worth springing for. Just keep them a little ways away from CRT's and hard drives.

Five screws out, but nothing's budging. Are we missing something, or were those screws as pointless as the rest of the dock?

Oh, real original, JBL. Like I haven't had enough of these stupid slits from the battery compartments in my childhood toys. "You can put the LR43 or whatever it is in by yourself," Mom said, poring over a Reader's Digest. "You'll have to learn sooner or later." Fortunately, the ophthalmologist said the resulting damage from the mini screwdriver wasn't permanent, and I retained most of my sight.

It doesn't budge easily. You're going to have to wedge your flathead screwdriver in further than you're comfortable with. Unless, of course, you're a reasonable person, and you're not worried about utterly destroying your speaker dock.

Keep pulling, there's more latches. Ignore the disconcerting snapping noises that sound like breaking plastic. Either it's doing what it should, or you're doing yourself a favor. You'll also need to pull out the plugs for the wires that attach the top half to the bottom half. Pull and wiggle the white connectors from side to side and they should slide out.

You now have two halves: an interesting half, and a boring half. Unless you find USB, audio, and power ports exciting for some reason, in which case you have two exciting halves. Weirdo.

Seriously, the boring side doesn't even have the manufacturing date printed correctly. Let's just get this out of the way so we don't have to look at it anymore.

Once you remove the screw holding the PCB in place, you'll need to get your flathead out again and pry. If you want to preserve the ports, keep an eye on them and make sure you're moving the side opposite them upward so you don't wind up catching them on the housing.

Okay, that's out. Whoop-de-friggin-doo. Now on to the components we actually care about.

Here's the other PCB we need to get out before we can get to our lightning plug. Note that this whole thing is held in by a single screw. Irresponsible. Sloppy. Why did you buy this again?

That ribbon cable going through the hole in the PCB is hooked to the lightning connector. If that sort of cable looks familiar, it's probably because you've taken apart your laptop, because it's exactly the same kind of cable most laptops use to connect the keyboard to the motherboard. That little black bit where it connects to the board flips up, and then you can pull the ribbon right out.

The hinge is removable, but you have to mess with that spring on the left, which you can see after you remove a small panel. Instead, just remove the screws that are on the hinge so you can get the part holding the lightning connector on pulled away.

It's kind of a pain.

Once you get that off, it's possible to pull the plug out, but it's much easier to flip it over to the top and push the plug through.

Once you've pushed it a little way in, you can easily grip the housing and pull it free. Congratulations, you now have a lightning cable!

Unfortunately, it's not very useful. What else do we have?

All that's left is a pair of speakers. Each one's held in by two screws. Watch out, their magnets are pretty strong.

One loose. You'll just have to tug on that wire bundle a bit to get it out of its clip.

And that's everything! Anything we can do with this?

Unfortunately, the speaker set doesn't make a very good pair of headphones...

But the gutted top half of the dock makes a pretty sweet mask.

I'd put it all back together again like I did with the eWave, but then I'd have a speaker dock when I finished. And why would I want that? Until next time, MehGyvers!