hey I'm Kyle with iFixit and I've got
something special for you today normally
we're doing the teardown ourselves but
today I have brought the product
engineering team to do the teardown
together with me this is Jeremy and Elin
from shaper tools thanks for coming on
guys thanks for having us and their new
product is a shaper origin this thing
they claim is the future of woodworking
and we're gonna find out if it's really
true I'm very excited about this this is
a it's a it's a router with CNC
fanciness so it's a it's a
computer-controlled router that you can
supposedly do all kinds of interesting
woodworking with so this is I mean this
is relatively unassuming you have the
fancy box and I mean this thing is
gorgeous let's get the box out of the
way take a look at what this thing can
do at the center of this we have we have
a traditional rather which would be
familiar in any wood shop and you can
use it to cut shapes or cut you know
we'll use it to do you know nice corners
on on tables it is a computer-controlled
positioning system attached to the
routers basically you are responsible
for the course movements and the tool
does define movements for you so you
program in a shape that you want to cut
you can download it online or does not
design in any 2d or 3d CAD program
putting on the tool we're used on tool
software to design things as you go it
gets attached to the workpiece virtually
you follow it like in a video game
basically on the screen and then the
tool compensates for you in real time
and make sure you get the exact cut that
you want even if you don't have the
steadiest hands ever so that's how
you're doing something like this where
this is a puzzle piece that would be
very challenging to I don't know how I
would attempt to make that by hand I
mean aside from just chiseling it very
carefully but that you can see this the
seam I mean the the tolerance on this is
very very tight so how do I make
something like this so to make something
like this you might design it in
Illustrator or Inkscape or your program
of choice you would load it onto the
tool it's Wi-Fi connected or via USB and
then you would use shaper tape this
stuff here
and apply that to your workpiece that's
how the tool can read in the workpiece
and basically make an augmented reality
version of whatever you're gonna be
cutting and then you attach your work
your design file to that on the tools on
tools touchscreen and you follow it and
the tool does the rest of the work for
you okay so this tape is I mean these
dominoes I just put these out on the
table in any pattern
how does it use this tape to know where
it's at
sure so you put the tape down and you
can see the tape has all these markers
on it that look like dominoes and each
of those becomes a reference point kind
of like if you're trying to tell someone
how to get to the gas station you say
well pass the Hotel on the left and pass
the Shell station on the right and
they'll get to the BP station or
something like that each of these
there's a camera located underneath
underneath there between the two lights
and it's looking out and when it sees a
marker it remembers oh that's I remember
where that marker was and it sees this
marker and by looking at a bunch of
markers it figures out where it's
located and so what we're gonna do is is
do a scan here just scan and then I'm
gonna move this around and show it all
the Domino's and it's going to create a
map of the workspace based on what it
sees mm-hmm and so how many how many
lines of tape or how many Domino's do
you need so we typically put the tape
maybe this picture a little bit you can
go even wider mm-hmm and maybe like
three to four inches between tape
something like that a little tighter if
you plan on cutting through a lot of it
because as soon as you cut through it it
destroys the Domino's
all right well and just says show how
approachable this is let's let's draw a
shape on here so I'm just gonna pick a
circle and we'll say I want a two inch
diameter circle okay and I can put it
wherever I want so we'll place it there
and so what I'm seeing is I've got on
the screen I've got the circle and and
so as I move this around it is helping
me with the fine details and that's
really the magic is all I have to do is
get it sort of in the right vicinity and
if I go too far out of the way it's
gonna say no you screw it up and it'll
back off the tool so Heligan side this
thing well you tell us you're the
teardown expert okay so
the spindle on the front this is kind of
separate unit and as part of the normal
calibration press I can unplug this and
then I need a hex key and loosen that
and I can remove the spindle so this is
how you do tool changes this is fairly
straight for we will set that aside and
this comes off all right so I have not
given any thought ahead of time to how
this thing comes apart I think I'm gonna
start with the back what's your favorite
torque size t6 is the most common size
used on cellphones today so that's
that's probably our favorite okay
back plate there we go cool Wow okay so
they kind of guess at what I'm seeing
here and we make you a little more
teardown actually you want all right
before I start guessing yeah I was
taking more stuff okay we can take the
thing out and then now you larger
torques this is this more nerve-wracking
for you or for me well we've done this
teardown many many times many times you
fun to watch someone else do it so
alright go for it give me so for this
shoulder yes this is where the cable
comes in
so what something I really like about
this is you plug it into power and it's
on and you're working on anything you
can yank the power you can plug it in
and that exactly fits with my power tool
work flow but that's not a workflow that
I associate with any of my electronic
devices yeah I mean that's the paradigm
we were going for we want it to feel
super robust it's constantly saving what
you're doing as you go it's that you
feel like you can you know treat it like
a piece of precision machinery but also
a tool and something that you can use to
get work done so now I've got that off
there's a snack right
there and say you were just want to that
one yeah it's nice having that thanks
free good that's where the hidden snap
is there's all the times we're poll on
something we'll break it off and be
careful cuz the wires so now the AC
wires go in to the power system there so
if I want to get to a point where I can
just take this power cable away because
it's getting in my road this looks like
another Torx t10 do you think capacitors
in here I need to worry about you should
be fine okay we're good so I'm going to
set that to the side
great okay
alright so we've got two stepper motors
here and I see they're labeled R and L
and it's I guess that's the way if I'm
looking at here that's right so you got
a driver board for each and then is
everything integrated and one main PCB
how many pieces there's a lot of PCBs in
here which you'll see as you continue to
take it apart because the unique form
factor things need to be in lots of
different orientation so it seems like
there's more power driver circuitry on
the bottom and then as I move up more
mm-hmm okay so what direction would you
suggest ahead next eventually we will
want to get the touchscreen off mm-hm
what's the step well we have to decide
if we want to go more towards the
mechanical stuff next to the electrical
stuff next maybe taking the base off
might be good next time yeah let's do
the mechanical side and then be at this
for a while
easy enough and there's a flimsy wire
down here okay so this is just two pins
going to the touch off weight sensor and
that's that's detecting when the device
is lifted off the table okay so talk me
through what am I seeing here so this is
our XY mechanism and it's pretty
non-traditional when you typically see
XY mechanisms they're normally act two
axes that are perpendicular to each
other and they're stacked on top of each
other so so what's the part that's
moving here well you can grab the
carriage the other side and wiggle it
around and you'll see Wow so this is
entirely linkage based if you look
inside it when we take actually this
might be the next thing to take off is
if we take off these two plates and
you'll really see take off the plates so
you've got a bearing built into this
part exactly okay so we have here this
is and I can hold this up a little bit
so you can so I can move the motors and
so and I can feel each individual step
now we're going to move on to figure out
how it moves up and down in the Z
direction does I take this last screw
out is it going to fall down on me oh
you can't fall out completely but I
would support it so this feels like
cheating having you here that give me
hints and so before you take that
totally out I'll just hold this here for
you you want to remove the cap were you
able to design the assembly line to
minimize toolchain like this every step
have a different size tool in the
assembly line so that's one one
consideration is trying to minimize the
number of tool changes and minimizes
number of torque setting changes and
things like that okay there we go okay
so what I've been interested in curious
about the whole time is the electronics
how do you do a touch screen that was so
responsive so let's let's take a look at
that okay so we get the attach screen
assembly off there's two bolts here on
the side and open ocean there's no delay
let the touchscreen up they're a lot
larger Torx screws they'll have a custom
to with her that's pretty slick I'd say
you win on repair ability points for
this seems like getting this screen off
is going to be relatively
straightforward ribbon cable and there
it's free that okay so I've got
touchscreen assembly and we've got a PCB
here so are the brains of the device in
the mania or here in the main unit so
the main processor and everything is
back here that's the part that has the
heatsink on it and then everything else
is basically peripherals and let's go
back over and talk about I take the fan
off we can take the fan off we can also
get to the division the computer vision
sub-assembly if you want to do that
that's in there okay could also take if
you're interested if you take yeah we
could take an hour off meaning on the
base chair it might be a good one and
again once once the base comes off you
want to be careful because there's
cables going to the handles Rea and also
going down to the touch sensor yeah so
those guys go to the encoder interfaces
for the closest of control as well as
the handle buttons and then those go to
the stepper motors so don't talk to me
about the handle buttons I mean I
understand you know start/stop that
makes sense but walk me through the the
guy kind of additional guided mode yes
so the the handle buttons at any time
emulate the functionality on the screen
with the goal being of we want you to
keep your hands on the handles for as
much time as possible on your cutting
but yeah Redis ready stop Green is go
basically but in small areas with lots
of detail you can hold the green button
down and it'll go into an automatic mode
and progress through as much of the
corrective range as possible so for
really small intricate designs the
machine will basically do it all for you
yeah it has two different ways of
working one is where it's constantly
trying to follow you and keep up with
where you move and the other is where
you're following it and it's trying to
just constantly move so this is your
power supply that's the ACDC you
that's supplying all the other power for
the stepper motors and the computer
that's on board got it and they can
petition I want to get the computer okay
going to back the smaller screws unplug
the fan there lift it out okay
cool all right straightforward heatsink
yeah Broadcom it's a 10 X B in XP
freescale I'm not very familiar free
skills product line so why don't you you
saved me the googling and tell me what's
it's an imx6 application processor okay
i'm so similar to power to what you
would find in a cell phone from years
ago and then on that board there is the
communications and the application
processor memory flash flash and ram
okay all that good stuff
and that's all on this dollar board
mm-hmm that's all on the daughter board
and then there's more electronics
underneath the daughter board all right
let's take a look at the computer vision
sensors so we have the camera module
tucked in here and we get this metal
bracket we need to remove I would
imagine the calibration on the vision
system is kind of important it is and
that's you know that's why it has to be
a really well-built machine
you don't want stuff to move once you
can read it okay so now I've got the
camera system out well and I mean this
is pretty much it so yet I can I peel up
the phone here oh yeah I guess you have
to peel the foam to get to this screws
underneath it so you can remove the PCB
okay so here's our camera PCB and we've
got you've got your own stamp flux cable
okay
and and this is a standard smartphone
camera it looks like basically and then
some very large LEDs so but but this is
the difference between a smart tool and
the rather of the past is being able to
sense and understand the context of
where it's at now I've got the camera
out we can pretty much see everything
inside this this is an incredibly
complex piece of machinery it's
effectively a little robot it's a little
it's a little working robot but I like
that it's a it's more of a helper it's
augmenting my natural capabilities I can
see enough to get it accurately but I
can't physically guide a rather
accurately by hand so having a having a
robot the help is really exciting I
think we've been talking about home
robots for a long time to help you do
household tasks maybe maybe we're gonna
end up with robots in the workshop
before we have them in the kitchen
that's what we're betting on an origin
and shaper is all about
human-in-the-loop robotics we think that
humans can be involved and be creative
and make amazing things and then robots
can be used to give us superpowers and
make us even better at doing those
things well thanks so much for joining
me this is an absolute blast really
appreciate it thanks a lot yeah there's
a lot of fun and for all of you watching
at home check out shaper tools.com and
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