Taking Apart your DTR-1

Many folks have e-mailed me on how and if they should go about opening up the case of their Dauphin DTR-1. There are many reasons why one would want to do this...to fix a loose cable, to upgrade a part, to look inside for a component name, or just for curiousity. Recently my LCD display went out as the result of a loose connector. I was feeling ambitious and decided to try opening up my DTR-1. It's pretty simple really....just make sure you have plenty of desk space and don't loose the screws. Take your time and BE CAREFUL! I am not going to be held responsible because someone read this file and ripped a bunch of connectors and it cost them $250 to get it fixed. Got it? Okay...then lets go for it!

Step 1: Locate a place to begin the disassembly. An empty desk or table
        is best. You may want to have a petre dish around to put screws in.
        It should have plenty of light, an adequately-sized screwdriver, and
        easy access to some asprin in case you break something.

Step 2: First remove the metal bracket covering the side with the serial port
        and modem/ethernet jacks, the side with the parallel port, and the
        side with the IDE connector. To do this, locate the tiny screw-holes
        near the end of the bracket on each parallel side. They should come
        out with little or no difficulty. Pull on the side with the parallel
        port and remove the bracket.

Step 3: The rest (4) of the screws are on the bottom (the bottom when you are
        holding it so that the screen controls (brightness, contrast, etc.)
        are horizontal). Remove these and CAREFULLY pull the screen half
        apart from the other half. Make sure it only splits into two pieces.
        There are actually 4 or 5 layers, 2 of them are of metal shielding.
        Do not remove these unless you have to, and even then don't do it
        now, wait until you have separated the two primary layers.

Step 4: There should be 4 wires/ribbon cables preventing you from opening
        the layers completely. One of these is permanent, so do not try to
        remove it. There is one with several wires is connected to a small
        daughter-board. Stick a fingertip under the board and gently lift it.
        It will come out completely and you should be able to open the case
        further now.

Step 5: The two remaining ribbon cables (excluding the non-removable one)
        connect to the mainboard and are removed with only a little difficulty
        and a pair of tweezers. The wider of the two is EASILY broken, so take
        extra care with it. If you do break it, you can usually push it back
        in if you close the case enough. This was the loose cable that made
        my screen go black.

Step 6: The other daughterboards can be removed easily with a screwdriver.
        I have not had a lot of time to experiment, but the memory module
        is on the oppisite side of the battery compartment, and the hard
        disk (VERY tiny....almost matchbox sized) is next to the battery
        compartment. In a couple of weeks there might be some pictures of
        this on my web page (if I can locate a scanner), as I documented
        the entire "expedition" with my camera.

Well...that's about it. Let me know (toby@eskimo.com) if you get anything useful out of this....hopefully it will answer some of your questions.