Disassembling Bowers and Wilkins PI4 Headphones Right Earpiece and Control Unit

Written By: Lenny
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Disassembling Bowers and Wilkins PI4 Headphones Right Earpiece and Control Unit

Difficulty

Difficult

Steps

10

Time Required

3 hours

Introduction

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    • Remove rubber parts

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    • (Optional) Tip: Apply alcohol to seam to soften the glue

    • Pry open the metal shell carefully with a flat object, e.g. cutter knife

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    • (Actually turned out to be unnecessary, nothing interesting beneath)

    • Remove the dark foam pad from the end of the cable. Make sure to grab the sticker pad (transparent) and not just the foam, otherwise it will crumble

    • Store the pad on a flat plastic foil to keep the glue intact

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    • To pry open the earpiece/ speaker shell, carfeully insert a sharp object in different places around the seam

    • It will eventually pop open. Go gradually and gently, not too much at once

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    • The cables are clipped into the metal shell and aditionally secured with glue. They can be removed with gentle force without damaging the metal (but I did slightly damage the rubber cable)

    • (Optional) apply alcohol to the seam to soften the glue

    • With some pliers gripping the cable and holding the metal shell with the fingers, gently rock sideways until the cable comes loose

    • The cable to the earpiece is actually multiple parts:

    • the outer rubber cable

    • an inner black cable with the wires, which can slide back and forth inside the outer rubber cable

    • a Bluetooth antenna at the base of the right earpiece cable

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    • Inside the rubber cable connecting the right and left control unit is a flat FPC cable. This can be detached from the right control unit PCB later

    • The rubber cable is also held in place by a clip which can be gently rocked open without damaging the metal shell

    • Tip: use a piece of cloth to prevent damage to the rubber cable when clamping with the pliers

    • Holding the metal shell with your fingers and the cable with some pliers, gently rock up and down until the clip and glue comes loose

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    • The black earpiece cable can be pulled back inside the rubber jacket. This allows the control unit to be pulled out towards the neckband by a few centimeters

    • Once pulled far enough out, detach the FPC connecting the neckband to the right control unit

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    • The trick is to go back and forth: Pull the control unit PCB out towards the neckband first, then the push buttons can be taken out the other end. Only after that can the entire PCB be pushed out towards the earpiece to fully remove the metal shell!

    • Pull the control PCB towards the neckband end several centimeters

    • Remove the push buttons towards the earpiece side

    • Slide the PCB back into place

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    • Now the PCB can be pulled out towards the earpiece end!

    • There are two microphones on a flex FPC. Gently pry these up from the plastic shell

    • The black plastic shell can then be removed by some clips on the back

    • Ignore the clear tape, I added this temporarily to hold back the rubber jacket from the black earpiece cable.

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    • The reason why I did the disassembly was to diagnose a broken contact on the right earpiece (no sound)

    • There are four more wires for the Active Noice Cancelling microphone and a switch to detect when the headphones are magnetically clipped together (causing playback to pause)

    • I resoldered one wire from the magnet detector switch to be used for the right speaker, both on the control PCB as well as the speaker end

    • By this, I was able to fix the right speaker without extra cables or ugly modifications. The only function now broken is the magnetic clip detection.

Conclusion

To reassemble your device, follow these instructions in reverse order.

Author

Lenny

Member since: 17/11/24

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