A Complete Teardown of Oral-B Electric Toothbrush

Electric Toothbrush, yeah, electronics has reached to places where no one has ever imagined a couple of decades back.

When I saw Electric toothbrush, I thought it will be a simple motor, a battery and a switch based circuit, electronics is not really required.

But, only after doing a teardown of Oral B Electric toothbrush I came to know that a small electronic circuit is used.

So, the question was, why do we really need an electronics circuit?

I realized that it has a two minute timer. This helps user build a habit of brushing for atleast two minutes and after that it will stop automatically. Wow, that’s interesting, right?

Do we really need an Electric Toothbrush?

I did a quick online search and found this, which I wasn’t aware of. Electric toothbrushes offer several advantages over manual toothbrushes, including:

1. Effective Plaque Removal
2. Ease of Use: They require less manual effort. (next level would be someone holding it for us? 🙂 )
3. Built-in Timers: Most electric toothbrushes have built-in timers to help ensure you brush for the recommended two minutes.
4. Fun for Kids: They can be more appealing to children, making it easier to establish and maintain good brushing habits.
5. Pressure Sensors: Some models have pressure sensors to alert you if you’re brushing too hard, which can help prevent damage to your gums and tooth enamel.
6. Various Brushing Modes: Many electric toothbrushes offer different modes for sensitive teeth, gum care, whitening, or deep cleaning.

However, it’s important to note that while electric toothbrushes can provide these advantages, the key to good oral health remains consistent and proper brushing technique, whether you’re using an electric or manual toothbrush.

Enough of theoretical gyan(knowledge).

Oral-B Electric Toothbrush Teardown

Let me take you to the teardown and show you what all is there inside.

It was very interesting to learn about electric toothbrush, how many different parts are used to build a simple electric toothbrush.

Oral-B is a German brand but still the product is Made in China. Because that’s the most cost effective way.

But in India, we can change this.

It took me sometime to take it apart as I was not able to figure out how to open it easily.

It tried to remove the hand grip just to see if there were any screws but only after struggling for sometime I got to know that by hitting the motor shaft from top, the whole mechanism will come down.

I tried twisting the neck to see if it opens 😐

At the bottom, you can press from sides and open the battery compartment cover. It uses two AA cells for power the brush.

When I light hammered the motor shaft downwards, I got this whole mechanism come out nicely 🙂

Electronic Toothbrush Electronics

You can see it has Cell holder portion, where two electrodes are getting connected where motor is there. The cell connections are going to motor and the PCB (on the other side).

Four pads you see on the PCB near shaft are basically ON/OFF switch pads.

One 8-pin microcontroller is used which is ATMEL AT TINY13, one Mosfet is used for motor control and Zener diode is used for battery input protection(just in case). You also see couple of test points which are mainly used for programming the MCU and testing during high volume production.

The PCB is single sided as nothing much is there on the PCB and this helps keep cost pretty low.

Rest is the motor and its mechanism which connects to the shaft and makes the vibration.

The DC motor used is from company called KEDA. it is 2.1V DC, Part number as mentioned on the motor is FF-180SH-2760V-42K.

That’s all in this teardown. I hope you found this teardown interesting and learned something new.

I am always interested to know which other teardown you would be interested in, please do share in the comments below.

if you have questions about this teardown, we can discuss on DevHeads Discord Server.

I will publish a new blog very soon.

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