Disassembling a “Smart” 7000R series active pen for the Smart SBID-7075R and SBID-7086R digital whiteboards
by Olivier Cleynen
I write this in the hope of saving time for others faced with a defective or broken active pen for their Smart whiteboard, since I couldn’t myself find any information on disassembling this pen. Let me jump to the unfortunate conclusion: this pen is completely irreparable. It cannot be disassembled without causing major damage.
The pen is assembled axially from both sides. The center structure is a metal cylinder, around which the soft grip rubber is molded. The main colored plastic cylinder is press-fitted inside the metal cylinder. The front sub-assembly is snap-fit from the front, and the back sub-assembly snap-fit from the back. To open the pen, you have to pull axially on the sub-assemblies, since there is no screw mechanism of any kind. Pulling axially will shear off the ends and clips of the main colored plastic cylinder.
There is no way, in my understanding, to change the battery or the writing tip of the pen. Opening the pen will damage the main cylinder so much that it can’t be reassembled. Even so, the writing tip is clip-fit in a sprung sub-assembly, with a copper spool around it, making its extraction extremely difficult. As for the battery (ICR10440 3,7 V 350 mAh), it is soldered on both poles to a fragile ribbon which also connects the main circuit board to the LED board at the back of the pen. Even after you have completely unwrapped the battery, the soldered connections remain hard to access.
I would understand if repairability had been sacrificed in favor of manufacturing cost or compactness. But the pen is definitely not cheap to produce, nor easy to assemble, nor compact. I counted 20 different components — even the two large metal rings that allow charging are somehow not identical!
Like for their whiteboards, here SMART has a well-working product that has been developed too far away from the classroom. Their engineers have not spent enough (any?) time observing their products in use. The pens endure a good deal of abuse during their life in the classroom, they roll off the table once a day, their tips wear off, and their batteries can’t hold charge forever. If they cannot be repaired, at least the company should commit to producing them for a long time. A 5000€ digital whiteboard is pretty much useless in a classroom without functioning pens (what are you going to do, write with your finger?). It is a disgrace that SMART has not envisioned what happens to their products even five years down the road.