Card Radio Teardown

Hackaday have picked up your video https://hackaday.com/2025/03/22/card-radios-remembered/

Glad to hear that your voice has improved since the last video.

TA7792: FM/AM Receiver IC, TA7766: FM Stereo Decoder IC, TA7767: Stereo Audio Amplifier IC. They were made by Toshiba. All Datecodes seem to be from 1985.

In the last video I commented that I had seen the Sony radios for sale in Japan in 2006. I get the impression that they were being sold mainly as a souvenir so maybe they were never sold outside of Japan. Having bought one, and already having the SW100 at the bottom left of the picture I thought it might be fun to get a TR55 as shown top right. I then discovered collectors value them in a similar manner to Apple 1 computers

Just joined your patreon as I've been enjoying your vids for years and wanted to support you and wish you well. You're sounding so much better in this video. Wishing you a speedy recovery.

Good update video Mat and good hear voice is stronger

I am glad that you are recovering from your vindictive virus. That card radio though, seems to have a long road back to an active lifestyle. Perhaps you could just follow up with testing it with a normal button cell just to hear if the circuit is still working? Just to show that there is still hope in the world. Or not.

You’re sounding a lot better than you did a few days ago, Mat! This teardown reminds me of dissecting a frog back in School. Impossible to do it non- destructively and zero chance of putting it back together, let alone bringing it back to life.

I had the FM Card radio, it was great at the time. Will take a look in the loft.

I had something similar years back, it was a radio built into a compact disc case. https://www.ebay.com/itm/326407063463

Definitely sounding better!

The chips all have 85 on them as well, so I'm pretty sure it was made in 1985. Although first developed for NASA in the 1960s, surface-mount chips were still pretty cutting-edge in cheap consumer electronics in the mid-1980s.

Your voice is much improved here, Mat. Glad you're on the mend.

"Should have used that on the cybertruck" 🤣🤣

At least now the battery can be disposed of safely and separately from the rest of the e-waste =P And yes, glad to hear you're recovering.

I wasn't expecting this, you didn't mention it in the video but I figured the lack of a teardown was due to the sealed unit nature of the device. It's good to see that they can be dismantled. I was interested in seeing the internals. even though i'm no expert, it highlights aspects of the construction. The Reditune video had the electroncis neatly lined up and whle this is aesthetically pleasing i suspect this made production simpler as one person could solder in a component then the second person knew exactly where the next bit went. As for chips i don't have an encyclopaedic knowledge on them but people in the comments do and it's nice to see the chip i figure is an off the shelf FM tuner chip to be an off the shelf FM tuner chip. Also with AM radios where they have put the internal aerial as they can only be so small. Edit: I've just seen the video and i was right in my initial assumption, the process is destructive. It was interesting to see the guts though. HRegarding the glue isopropyl alchol works to dislodge some glues, usually hit glue but a few others too.

Thanks for the teardown and congrats on your improving health. The insides are more complex as I imagined. If it were worth it, I bet it would have been repairable, yet finding the right battery looks impossible

Good to hear you sounding more like yourself! I suspect with a LOT of patience and careful application of heat that one of these could be non destructively taken apart. Not worth it, but theoretically possible.

This posted right during my church service while I was singing, “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow…” Put it in a different perspective. (You can conquer the world with a little grit, and a Swiss Army Knife.)

My previous "prise it open" comment wasn't about seeing what's inside or learning anything. The rechargeable battery was dead. There was a chance that a replacement could be swapped in. Batteries have come a long way.

That is the slimmest tuning capacitor I have ever seen!

I would have expected them to be non-repairable, it usually is with this kind of technology...

After seeing the primary video about the card radios, I thought maybe someone would jokingly suggest doing a teardown video, but didn't think it would be worth doing. And while I don't ken much of what's inside, it was a worthy effort, but only because you had a "sacrificial" model available.

Foreshadowing the construction of all mobile phones. That little spring probably electrically connected the front and back panels. I’ve seen that in slim calculators as well. I believe it was to provide a safe discharge path for static electricity, bypassing the circuitry.

Bonus video, love it, thanks. Nice little video for the Public next week to keep the algorithm happy while you ease yourself back into it, Mat.

Thanks for making the extra effort to film a teardown. Even though very few people in the audience can probably make sense of it (I certainly can't), everyone is curious to get a glimpse of the secret ingredients. There is more going on inside than I expected, and it was a bit surprising to see neatly packaged ICs in there. I had assumed it would be a Chip-on-PCB setup with a black blob of epoxy covering a die that was glued directly to the PCB, like you’d find in a cheap calculator.

You sound so much better!

Your voice sounds better in this video than the last one. Small day by day improvements!

Thanks for the teardown! One tip, which you probably already know: A little heat can help to loosen up adhesive.

I actually brought me to tears to hear you sounding amazing as ever, again.

You sound great today. I always love extra videos. The level of engineering in these tiny things is really incredible. Who needs a screwdriver when you have a mega multi-tool? The swipe at Cybertruck was a sweet bonus. 🤍

Glad to see your getting better good to have you back

Nice! Was hoping to get a peek into one.