jerome_m
Member
I have been doing similar boards by hand. Actually, only the components are placed by hand, the soldering paste is deposited via a stencil and the board is reflow soldered.
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Hasselblad X1D teardown - doesn't look very neat compared against Sony
- Thread starter voidshatter
- Start date
If you want to segue to a more figurative "Hasselblad X1D Teardown", you should start a new thread and invite the usual cast of characters (i.e., certain GFX owners) to participate. They are always up for it. Alternatively, you could go over to LuLa, listen to the interview with Edward Burtynsky, who now uses a Hasselblad H6D, spend some time looking at his work, and then marvel how he could ever have created such work with leaf shutter lenses and NO JOYSTICK.
glenerrolrd
Workshop Member
Eric
I have substantial experience in manufacturing of low volume electronics (volume below what makes sense for a robotic assembly). What escapes most casual observers ..is that an EVF /digital camera has virtually no mechanical components . There isn t much value in hand assembly ..its nothing like Leica M rangefinder or even HB s H bodies . Hand assembly of the HB V system meant a lot ....not so much in a electronic model like the X1D . Here its about in line quality control and managing the supply chain of outside vendors .
What gives the X1D its hand made feel is the quality of the externals ...the case ,knobs etc . The design is elegant . The materials feel first rate . Its simply a beautiful product .
The concern about the internal wiring should be obvious and it hurts HB credibility to quote ...”works the same way “ ....of course it does . But a connection thats part of the board is far less likely to break down over time . And you would never design it this way ...its an obvious retrofit to fix or improve something . Will be done away with at some point when they can move a new board into production . This is completely understandable and only highlights one of the areas that products get improved overtime .
I didn t need to see the tear down to know that the X1D most certainly has had engineering changes that would have been better caught earlier . Just a heads up that getting the first release of any new product can be an issue .
The only proof will be in the actual reliability of the X1D overtime . With communication thru forums ..,most product issues are identified and reported . Only time will tell .
Roger
Got a three year warranty on mine ... longer than I usually keep digital cameras .... time will tell but the output
of this camera is worth the uncertainty.
Remember the days when I could count known Leica owners on one hand ....
Less bitching ... no less compelling imaging.
Oh well
Know you are aging when you understand the current conversation but quickly lose any interest in
responding to it.
As always ... kind regards to all.
Bob
GrahamWelland
Subscriber & Workshop Member
Me also!! Hand tuned too. I used one of these in a prior life as well.I could have said CDC 6600, but I didn't want to date myself.
Godfrey
Well-known member
LOL! By that measure, Bob, I'm getting as old as Methuselah...
I don't worry too much about this stuff at all. My Olympus E-1, with the skin off it, looks like a cobbled together mess of stuff. But it's fourteen years old and still works perfectly. The transistor radio I have on my desk for emergencies I bought in 1973 ... it's insides make any modern radio look like the far future ... yet it continues to play music and consumes an alkaline 9V battery very very slowly (last test was five months of continuous playing).
I'm sure I'll have my M-D and SL more than three years. I've had my E-M1 for four already and am only selling it because I want to clean the stuff I don't use out of the closet now.
Onwards!
G
I don't worry too much about this stuff at all. My Olympus E-1, with the skin off it, looks like a cobbled together mess of stuff. But it's fourteen years old and still works perfectly. The transistor radio I have on my desk for emergencies I bought in 1973 ... it's insides make any modern radio look like the far future ... yet it continues to play music and consumes an alkaline 9V battery very very slowly (last test was five months of continuous playing).
I'm sure I'll have my M-D and SL more than three years. I've had my E-M1 for four already and am only selling it because I want to clean the stuff I don't use out of the closet now.
Onwards!
G
LOL, Erik for just a moment you made me nostalgic for my old Saabs, which kept numerous mechanics very well employed over the years!
John
GrahamWelland
Subscriber & Workshop Member
Patches on the circuit board seem irrelevant really so long as the camera performs. Personally I'm waiting for v2 of the X1D but it is certainly a significant new camera and quite distinct from the GFX or other 50mp cameras today.
I just got home from Iceland and TBH an X1D would have been perfect for the trip vs my IQ3100/XF & Leica M10 system. Sure the phase was ultimately far superior but a real boat anchor. The Leica was great but an X1D would have been even better.
Btw, I despise my A7RII. Absolutely nothing wrong with it technically but ultimately it is soulless for me. Fantastic images but I just hate it. How do you explain that?
I just got home from Iceland and TBH an X1D would have been perfect for the trip vs my IQ3100/XF & Leica M10 system. Sure the phase was ultimately far superior but a real boat anchor. The Leica was great but an X1D would have been even better.
Btw, I despise my A7RII. Absolutely nothing wrong with it technically but ultimately it is soulless for me. Fantastic images but I just hate it. How do you explain that?
glenerrolrd
Workshop Member
I have to love it when a discussion turns to “consider the source “ . No thoughts on the relevance of the perspective provided ..just “known Leica owner “. Well that it explains it ..must be a HB hater ..no news here .
Those of us Leica owners ..have learned the hard way about the issues with new release digital cameras . Seriously have you seen one that didn t require years of firmware upgrades to achieve its promise ?
Post was a simple word of caution about what appears to be a “work around “ . Nothing more . Its a useful reminder that being a pioneer ..sometimes has a downside . Didn t stop me from going all in on the Leica M8 and I am sure it will not stop readers from aggressively pursuing the HB X1D .
If the post has no value to you ..why bother spoiling my morning coffee ?
I have some background in electronics and I feel I should comment on the topic. When we are buying electronics from overseas and we see a PCBA with soldered wires we immediately discard that supplier or product. Those products are class B or C electronics or “second hand” as they call them in china: defective boards that were repaired either individually or a bad production batch.
The soldered wires on that X1D could mean several things:
1. That particular camera was defective and Hasselblad repaired it and shipped it to the customer.
2. They discovered hardware problems after the board was designed, printed, or assembled-soldered and then they fixed those problems by hand.
What could this mean to the average user? The PCBA design was not ready for release and was rushed to market. Why? Only Hasselblad knows, maybe they had already printed or assembled thousands of boards and they could not scrap them or they were in a rush to ship to customers.
This could be showing on the final product. Many of the bugs people are having like the front and back dials not responding well or the touchscreen having erratically when doing touch focus to me they look like a result of hardware problems and not only firmware. Example: the front dial could be working OK, and so as the firmware, but the electronics that detects the input from the dial could be faulty or not filtering input noise well enough, etc. They can fix it with firmware but it’s much more complex.
There is no reason for a product of any price to have soldered wires like that in the year 2017. It’s not acceptable in a $20 USD Chinese product, and even more so on a $9000 USD product. It just screams that the PCB design has problems.
Surely Hasselblad knows this and probably already fixed it or are in the process of doing so.
The soldered wires on that X1D could mean several things:
1. That particular camera was defective and Hasselblad repaired it and shipped it to the customer.
2. They discovered hardware problems after the board was designed, printed, or assembled-soldered and then they fixed those problems by hand.
What could this mean to the average user? The PCBA design was not ready for release and was rushed to market. Why? Only Hasselblad knows, maybe they had already printed or assembled thousands of boards and they could not scrap them or they were in a rush to ship to customers.
This could be showing on the final product. Many of the bugs people are having like the front and back dials not responding well or the touchscreen having erratically when doing touch focus to me they look like a result of hardware problems and not only firmware. Example: the front dial could be working OK, and so as the firmware, but the electronics that detects the input from the dial could be faulty or not filtering input noise well enough, etc. They can fix it with firmware but it’s much more complex.
There is no reason for a product of any price to have soldered wires like that in the year 2017. It’s not acceptable in a $20 USD Chinese product, and even more so on a $9000 USD product. It just screams that the PCB design has problems.
Surely Hasselblad knows this and probably already fixed it or are in the process of doing so.
It should not,
Maybe some explanation is needed: If I saw the interior of the X1D and the Sony I will conclude that the Sony is less expensive.
The reason is that one is built using automated layout and the other is not.
As you decrease the number of descreet components and remove hand involved steps the price per unit goes down and the price for pilots goes up.
My comment does not resolve the issue of "digital cameras are overpriced", it doesn't even address it.
For that, we should restrict the query a little more.
Even so I want to stress something: If you take into account the complexity of Digital cameras (only the sensor has millions of components) the kind of facilities that are necessary to create digital components and what they are (multi-billion dollar fabs with giant clear rooms running on stable electricity and purified water that builds sub bacteria size components and pack them with 100s of meters of wire) it's very difficult to say those old school cameras were not overpriced. The Nikon D750 has almost all the components than a F4 has (sans the motor to drive the film) but much more. Does the price "what you get" ratio of DSRL and mirrorless FF is far better than MF? of course, and as I stated is far better than analog cameras too.
Best regards,
Hasselblad will be releasing new firmware at some point. Let's wait to see whether the bugs that have been experienced by some, but not all, owners of X1Ds are resolved before jumping to a conclusion that the bugs are due to the use of third rate electronics, which is what you have apparently asserted.
BTW, my X1D does NOT exhibit the "bugs" you mention. I seriously doubt I was just lucky and got a good solderer in Sweden.
voidshatter
Member
For the Sony camera, the blue wire seems to be an antenna for Wi-Fi if I recognise the connection point correctly. If true, then it shouldn't be regarded as soldered wire.
Obviously some people are not big fans of jumper wires... Same thing just happened when ThinkPad was first acquired by the Chinese company Lenovo:
voidshatter
Member
Thanks for the link. There are no jumper wires shown in the picture in that article, which suggests that they know it wouldn't be elegant to show the readers that there are jumper wires inside the camera, be it deliberate removal of jumper wires prior to photographing it, or simply a later revision of the PCB.
Now that you have reappeared, how about telling us about the source of your accusation (and that's exactly what it is) that the reason for the jumper wires is because Hasselblad ran out of money and could not afford to order newly designed boards.
voidshatter
Member
When you read "I was told that" then you should take it as a grain of salt, and not with that degree of hostility as if someone is doing damage to your faith. I still recall that in the X1D vs GFX thread where X1D performed much better in terms of long exposure you were a happy guy. The information was passed by whoever forwarded these tear-down pictures to me. It has been explained by others in this thread several times already - jumper wires are fixes implemented after production of PCB. If the camera in the OP is not an engineering sample, but instead, one in the first shipped batch for retail orders, then it means Hasselblad could not afford (time-wise or money-wise) to ship a batch with a revised design of PCB without jumper wires. I believe if Hasselblad has spare cash, then they could implement board-level fixes inside the PCB in later batches.
