Disassembly of Sony Dream Machine ICF-C717PJ

crwdns2936071:01crwdne2936071:0 — Opening the housing

To open the housing, simply unscrew the marked small Phillips screws. Then the backup battery must be pulled out. E.g. with a knife, the plastic cover on the back can be carefully pressed off the aluminized housing part and the housing can be opened.

crwdns2936071:02crwdne2936071:0 — Loosening the receiver board

To loosen the receiver board, remove 3 screws [1]. By loosening another screw [2] the projector unit can already be loosened.

crwdns2936071:03crwdne2936071:0 — Preparation for removing the internals

Unfortunately, the projector unit [1] cannot be pulled out upwards. The rotating lens unit is blocked on the housing. To remove the entire electronics from the housing, four screws actually have to be loosened. Only the two [2] screws are accessible. The other two are located out of reach underneath the projector.

crwdns2936071:04crwdne2936071:0 — Disconnecting the projector

First disconnect the cable connector [1] by pulling it out. Below the ribbon cable [2] you can also reach the projector LED, which can be tested e.g. with the diode test of a multimeter. After that, removing the projector unit becomes complicated.

crwdns2936071:05crwdne2936071:0 — Removing the internals

Once you have removed the projector, you can immediately see the two remaining screws underneath, which hold the entire inner workings in the case. These are easy to unscrew and then the whole interior can be taken out of the case with a little screwing in.

crwdns2936071:06crwdne2936071:0 — Exposing the control board

To remove the three-part keyboard, unscrew the marked screws. The middle keyboard part can be removed only after removing the small left and right keyboard parts. Attention, some screws may be covered by stickers.

crwdns2936071:07crwdne2936071:0 — The display

Accessing the display and its backlight is possible, but difficult since it is soldered on.

crwdns2936071:08crwdne2936071:0 — Assembly with collateral damage

As described, the cover of the rotating magnifier unit does not need to be removed, it is also very complicated. I removed it with great effort with damage. You have to glue the removed side surface back on and unfortunately live with the optical defect.

crwdns2936071:09crwdne2936071:0 — Conclusion

The construction of the alarm clock is unseasonably small for the production year 2010 and is complex in terms of assembly. It is a good example of how Sony systematically fails to develop repair- and assembly-friendly products with high reliability due to outdated manufacturing technologie