Continued from [Kinect Teardown (2)] Struggling With Double-faced Tape
After opening the chassis of the main body, we began to examine the internal structure of the Kinect. There were three layers inside, and they were connected together by screws and connectors, constituting a module.
An infrared laser, a camera for infrared light and a camera used to detect visible light were mounted on the first layer (the front most layer). The middle layer was mounted with a middle-size circuit board and a small circuit board, and the third layer was equipped with a large circuit board.
The infrared laser, the camera for infrared light and the camera used to detect visible light on the first layer were connected to the middle-size circuit board on the middle layer via flexible circuit boards. Also, a thin metal heat sink was attached on the chip mounted on the large circuit board.
At the first glance, the three-layer structure of the main body looked simple. But we thought it was untidy because there were various types of cables running through narrow gaps.
There were air holes on both sides of the Kinect's main body, and a cooling fan was mounted on the left side (when seen from the front) as well as the infrared laser. The cooling effect was enhanced by using the fan to send air through the gaps between the three layers. The fan was located near the laser probably to efficiently cool the laser element.
The cooling fan was placed in a rubber case.
"It is probably for reducing the noise of the fan so that it does not affect voice recognition," an engineer said.
We removed the fan from the main body and continued the teardown.