Storm 2 Secrets Revealed - TBZ Exclusive

[britishturbo]

Originally Posted by blackmannx

You have her all stripped down and naked!! so dirty !!

Just wait till you see what's next!

[britishturbo]

The screen/pcb assembly is held together by 6 clips...
When you pop them off you can start to whats peaking at us from under the screen...

[britishturbo]

Onc the screen is popped off you are left with two pieces... the Screen... on the left... and the main pcb on the right...
You've seen this before, but take a close look at the 4 "Magic buttons"...
Take that in for a few... we'll take a closer look in a minute... lol

[howarmat]

awesome stuff! thanks for the share

[britishturbo]

We're getting deep into it now...
It's almost time to tell you how it works...
There's been lots of speculation... but no one else has hit the nail on the head... But keep one word in mind as you check out this pic... "Haptic"

[britishturbo]

So the "secret" of the Storm 2 "click" is in 2 steps...

Step 1: How does the device know when you've pressed? Well it's quite simple... look close and you'll see that there are 4 regular pcb button pads... The screen sits on top of the "rubber" piece on top of the button, and when you press the screen slightly it closes one of the 4 switches... that's part 1... 4 buttons...

[britishturbo]

Before I show you the rest... it's been said that the screen is solid when it is powered off...
This is somewhat true... it's not totally solid though... you can get some movement in the screen, but not much... basically you can move it as much as the rubber pads on the buttons compress... which is not much, and it is "almost" solid...

Now things are a little different when the device is powered up... the screen moves more then and "clicks"... or does it?

Here's where the speculation has been... is it some kind of solenoid? Is it some kind of powered switch? You wanna know don't you?

Well let's get on with the show...

[britishturbo]

The secret to what happens lays in the silver pads under the buttons... Well the only way to find out is to flip one over...

Ta Da!

The four silver pads are Piezo Discs... Kevin was correct that there was Piezo "somewhere" in the thing... he just didn't know where... But I can tell you that's a Piezo disc..
So hows it work?

Quite simple...
When the Storm 2 senses that you pressed one of the switches, it turns on the power to all 4, yes all 4, of the Piezo Discs... the result is simple... the screen can then move a little more because the Piezo disc actually moves slightly away from the screen...
But what also happens is your fingers feel the "Haptic Feedback" from the Piezo "snapping" and so it feels like the screen really clicks... when in reality... it barely moves...

Simple yet ingenious in the application!

[britishturbo]

Having told you how it works lets talk about the thing everyone wants to know...
Can you turn the "Click" off?

At this point in time, I don't think so... but I think it should be possible... because the click doesn't actually let the device know you pressed the screen... the click is the result of you pressing the screen... so it should be possible to turn it off...

The device I have is an earlier unit... so I don't know if the click is as violent in the final models, but to me I almost wished the click was half as loud as it was... it's louder than on a Storm 1... Hmmmm But maybe this has changed in later hardware? I don't know.

But overall RIM has done an excellent job with this device... the packaging and design is very well done. And it's very ingenious yet simple how they did the screen.

[britishturbo]

And just because I love it... lol the money shot