Perceiving the insides of a wireless camera flash receiver

In a recent teardown, I disassembled and documented the insides of a Godox wireless camera flash transmitter that ended up being in much better shape than had been advertised when I’d first acquired it. I was therefore highly motivated to return it to fully functional shape afterwards, albeit not for personal-usage reasons—it supported Fujifilm cameras, which I don’t own—but instead so that I could subsequently donate for another’s use, keeping it out of the landfill in the process.

This time around, the situation’s reversed. Today we’ll be looking at an “as-is” condition wireless camera flash receiver, from the same manufacturer (Godox’ X1R-C). And this time, I do have a personal interest, because it supports Canon cameras (“-C”), several of which I own. But given the rattling I heard inside whenever I picked it up, I was skeptical that it’d work at all, far from deluding myself that I could fix whatever ailed it. That said, it only cost $4.01 pre-15% promo discount, $3.40 after, in March 2024 from KEH Camera on the same order as its X1T-F sibling.

Here’s the sticker on the baggie that it came shipped in:

And here are a few stock photos of it:

Stepping back for a minute before diving into the teardown minutia: why would someone want to buy and use a standalone wireless camera receiver at all? Assuming a photographer wanted to sync up multiple camera flashes (implementing the popular three-point lighting setup or other arrangement, for example), as I’ve written about before, why wouldn’t they just leverage the wireless connectivity built into their camera supplier’s own flash units, such as (in my case) Canon’s EOS flash system?

Part of the answer might be that with Canon’s system, for example, “wireless” only means RF-based for newer units; older implementations were infrared- (also sometimes referred to as “optical”-) based, which requires line-of-sight between a transmitter and each receiver, has limited range, and is also prone to ambient light interference. Part of the reason might be that a given flash unit doesn’t integrate wireless receiver functionality (Godox’s entry-level flashes don’t support the company’s own 2.4 GHz X protocol, for example), or there might be a protocol mismatch between the separate transmitter and the built-in receiver. And part of the reason might be because the strobe illumination source you’re desiring to sync to doesn’t even have a hot shoe; you’ll shortly see how the Godox receiver handles such situations…normally, at least.

Let’s dive in, beginning with some overview shots, as usual accompanied by a 0.75″ (19.1 mm) diameter U.S. penny for size comparison purposes (per B&H Photo’s website, the Godox X1R-C has dimensions of 2.8 x 2.6 x 1.9″ / 70 x 65 x 47 mm and weighs 2.5 oz / 70.9 g). Back:

Rattling aside, it still powers up and outputs seemingly meaningful display info!

Left (as viewed from the front) side, including the power switch:

Bland front (no need for an infrared optical module with this particular receiver!):

Right side (you’ll see what’s importantly behind, and not behind, that rubberized panel shortly):

Top; you can tell from the extra contacts that this hot shoe’s not only actually “hot” but also Canon control protocol-cognizant:

And bottom; this particular shoe’s “cold”, intended only for mounting purposes:

Underneath that removable panel, unsurprisingly, is the two-AA battery compartment:

Look closely and you’ll see two screw heads inside it at the top corners, along with two more holes at the lower device corners in the photo. You know what comes next, right?

And inside we go:

Disconnect the cable harness mating the topside hot shoe to the PCB, and the separation of the two halves is complete:

Here’s a standalone overview of the inside of the top half, along with a hot shoe closeup:

And now for the (bottom) half we all care more about, because it contains the PCB:

Remember that rubberized flap I earlier mentioned? It got jostled out of position at this point, and eventually fell out completely. Notice anything odd behind it? If not, don’t feel bad; I still hadn’t, either:

Those two screws holding the PCB in place within the chassis are next to depart:

Before continuing, I’ll highlight a few notable (to me, at least) aspects of this side of the PCB. The connector in the lower left corner, again, goes to the cable harness which ends up at the hot shoe. The large IC at center is, perhaps obviously, the system “brains”, but as with other Godox devices I’ve already torn apart, its topside marking has been obliterated, so I unfortunately can’t ID it (I can’t help but wonder, though, if it’s a FPGA?). Above it is Texas Instruments’ CC2500, a “low cost, low-power 2.4 GHz RF transceiver designed for low-power wireless apps in the 2.4 GHz ISM band”: translation, Godox’s X wireless sync protocol. And above that, at the very top of the PCB, is the associated embedded antenna.

Onward. As I began to lift the PCB out of the chassis, the display popped out of position:

And at this point, I was also able to dislodge what had been rattling around underneath the PCB. Do you recognize it?

It’s the 2.5 mm sync connector, which acts as a comparatively “dumb” but still baseline functional alternative to the hot shoe for connecting the receiver to a strobe or other flash unit. It’s normally located next to the USB-C connector you recently saw behind the rubberized flap.

At this point, after all the shaking to get the sync connector out of the chassis, the power switch’s plastic piece also went flying:

I was initially only able to lift the PCB partway out of the chassis before it got “stuck”…that is, until I remembered (as with the earlier Godox transmitter) the two battery tabs connected to the PCB underside and sticking through the chassis to the battery compartment underneath:

Pushing them through the chassis from the battery compartment got to the desired end point:

The 2.5-mm sync connector site in the lower right corner of the PCB, below the USB-C connector, is obvious now that I knew what to look for! Rough handling by the Godox X1R-C’s prior owner had apparently snapped it off the board. I could have stopped at that point, but those screw heads visible atop the smaller PCB for the monochrome LCD were beckoning to me:

Removing them didn’t get me anywhere, until I got the bright idea to look underneath the ribbon cable, where I found one more:

That’s more like it:

The two halves of the display assembly also came apart at this point:

That pink-and-black strip is an elastomeric connector (also known by the ZEBRA trademark). They’re pretty cool, IMHO. Per the Wikipedia summary, they…:

…consist of alternating conductive and insulating regions in a rubber or elastomer matrix to produce overall anisotropic conductive properties. The original version consisted of alternating conductive and insulating layers of silicone rubber, cut crosswise to expose the thin layers. They provide high-density redundant electrical paths for high reliability connections. One of the first applications was connecting thin and fragile glass liquid-crystal displays (LCDs) to circuit boards in electronic devices, as little current was required. Because of their flexibility, they excel in shock and anti-vibration applications. They can create a gasket-like seal for harsh environments.

Here’s a standalone view of the backplane (with LEDs and switches alongside it), once again showing the contacts that the elastomeric connector’s conductive layers mate up with:

And here are a few shots of the remainder of the monochrome LCD, sequentially ordered as I disassembled it, and among other things faintly revealing the contacts associated with the other end of the elastomeric connector:

Last, but not least, I decided to try reversing my teardown steps to see if I could reassemble the receiver back to its original seeming-functional (sync connector aside) condition:

Huzzah! The display backlight even still works. I’ll hold onto the sync connector, at least for now:

I might try soldering it back in place, although I don’t anticipate using anything other than the alternative hot shoe going forward. For now, I welcome your thoughts in the comments!

—Brian Dipert is the Editor-in-Chief of the Edge AI and Vision Alliance, and a Senior Analyst at BDTI and Editor-in-Chief of InsideDSP, the company’s online newsletter.

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