I made a quick gallery of my recent adventure taking apart two remotes which is shared below:
Sony Bravia TV Universal Remote
Onn 4K Plus Streaming Device Remote
Procedure: Both remotes had plastic tabs holding them together. I was able to pry them apart with a guitar pick (credit card would work too) and separate the body from the internal remote board. The Sony remote (Green circuit board) was kind enough to label the component as “MIC1” with the screen printing so I flipped it over and removed the black adhesive covering over the Mic hole. The Mic hole is very small and I did try a few things before settling for a #1 flathead screwdriver from my iFixIt kit. The irony of using that kit to destroy something is not lost on me here. Anyway, I placed the screwdriver into the empty Mic hole and applied firm even pressure and let the flathead dig into the board. I went slow and could tell I was making progress when the Mic component on the other side of the board lifted away. At that point I backed out the screwdriver and used tweezers to pull off the Mic. Then quick reassembly and testing and all functions were good!
For the Onn 4k Plus Streaming remote (Black circuit board) I was able to follow the same procedure above where I used the pick to open the remote, used the screwdriver to apply even pressure to screw into the Mic hole and lift the component from underneath until I could get tweezers under it. I did however encounter an issue where a copper trace lifted with the component. It was very thin and I peeled back only enough to get a razor blade under it and sever it from the board. Then re-assemble and tested with no issues. All in all, for me with experience taking electronics apart it was about 20 minutes of working. I have one more Onn remote and a Samsung remote with a solar charger on the back to do next.
To get ahead of the comments on why I didn’t use a razor blade or heat gun to remove the mic: I tried a razor blade at first on the Sony remote but discovered that the component was soldered so close to the board that I would have to destroy the screenprint to get underneath it. Unfortunately I don’t trust myself with a heat gun either since I didn’t have Kapton tape to protect the other components.
If there is enough interest I can post the reassembled remotes for matching them or images of the Samsung remote surgery when I do it as well. Hope you all find this encouraging for how to do it on your own!
Gallery of Images: https://postimg.cc/gallery/tHX4fyD
There’s a chance that the trace leads to other ‘critical’ components and you may need to bridge the contacts.
There is also the chance that the PCB has more than 2 layers and the traces connecting the microphone to the next component (which could be BGA mounted, such as a pin of an IC) is inaccessable.
As someone who has destroyed many PCBs, peeling off components can peel off the contacts traces. It can even pull contacts and traces from the underside of the board if the component is soldered through the board, like that LED probably is.
I have never seen any implementation of a microphone that has “critical” components in series with it.
I’d advise against that from an engineering perspective because microphone failure is often a break in the conductive path and standard troubleshooting of non audio in failures generally doesn’t place a high priority on checking mics for continuity.
Even on a throwaway component like a remote, requiring microphone continuity would introduce unnecessary complexity and more chance for problems.
This is true, the mic did not appear to be in series with anything critical since I did lift a trace in the Onn remote. When I looked at the board I saw how small and close together the traces were. I didn’t have the datasheet for the model of Mic I found on the board, so I just decided the remote was better without it entirely. It may not have been the most elegant solution but it did work. I will consider the razor blade option in the future once I get some leads that are both thin and sharp enough to pierce the small traces.