Tech Exposed: Teardown of the Oculus Rift DK2

In today's Tech Exposed teardown we take a look inside the Oculus Rift DK2 to see what makes this virtual reality headset work. You'll need to remove the USB and HDMI cables which provide power and video to the headset. Inside the headset a set of lenses can be twisted out and then you'll need to remove the four screws holding the headset together. Four more screws are under plugs that can be pried out. Separate the plastic shell to reveal the electronics and disconnect the Flex circuit holding the two pieces together.

You can see the Flex circuit covers nearly the entire outer shell. The Flex circuit powers 40 infrared LEDs used by the positioning tracking camera. The logic board is held in place by three screws and a flex circuit threaded through it that connects to the display. The HDMI signals pass-through Toshiba HDMI interface bridge and then to the display. Five ST micro low-voltage constant current LED sync drivers drive the 40 IR LEDs. An STM 32 100 arm cortex M3 and a Cypress USB 2.0 hub controller round out the logic board. Other than the Oculus logo there's not much to see on the back, removing a few more screws frees the display from its housing and exposes a few Samsung logos and a synaptics touchpad Liebherr enclosure. We find a complete Samsung screen from the Galaxy Note 3A 5.7 inch full HD Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen.

[gkmackey]

It seems to me feather-weight qualities need to be exploited more to maximize comfort and minimize fatigue. Weight around the order of a stout ball cap. They should have lighter cables and literally everything else, but the cables look heavy to me. Billions were paid for Rift so this seems very achievable. I want one. It seems like racing with a rig is such a natural fit for the Rift. It should be massively immersive. Great video. Thanks.

[mrkiky]

Wow it just has a samsung phone screen in it? I was sure it has some sort of curved display. What percentage of your field of view does it fill?

[lauroadrianofreitas]

I bought the Deepoon E2. It uses the same Samsung Note 3 screen. I wish I could be able to exchange it for the Note 4 one.

[deeplearner]

cool vid. I'm curious what kind of image will appear on the samsung lcd panel. Since each eye will need to see different images for the human brain to recognize it as 3D, will the lcd panel just split its area in half and show two differnt images?

[gailweaver]

My headset dropped on the floor and now I can only see out of the left eye. When I put it on my head the right side was about 1/4 black but when I tried moving the wheel under the bottem it made the whole then dark and i can't move it either way now. Is that an easy fix?

[TheTrulove]

how fucking cheap theres seriousely a full note 3 screen in that thing for 600 bucks wtf its the whole front piece of the phone wtf thats just some cheap shit somebody made out of there old s3 why they couldnt use a note 5 screen all them screens cost alot of money so why not