TB15 re-engineering

Forward
Given the TB15 has been pulled from sale with little or no indication of when or if it will reappear I
was in the same boat as most with wanting a decent dock for the XPS15. On paper the TB15 is ideal
but obviously been less than successful for many. When analyzing many of the reddit posts I decided
the problem was mostly likely to be thermal engineering issues in nature. In fact my experience with
many electronics issues (particularly Chinese source designed) these days has been thermal in
nature. I suspect many of the younger designers are a little too digital and ignore the analogue
(shows my age!). So I took the gamble and purchased a second hand TB15 via ebay and took to it
with some engineering. I rather suspect the TB15 I got was a unit that someone was exiting from
after many of the frustrations voices on the various forums.

My conclusion after all of this is that the engineers behind the TB15 totally dropped the ball on the
thermal design. Not only is there a lot of hot chips running on a PCBA that has SMDs on both sides
but they provided no venting and a stupid rubber mat underneath to act as a great insulator.

What follows are the details of what I did.

WARNING

Do this AT YOUR OWN RISK. I do not warrant or guarantee that you will have success.
The TB15 is a fairly complex device. If you open it up then treat the internals with care. Use ESD
prevention such as static discharge straps and mat.

Carl Willis

4 Dec 2016
nzelectronicseng@hotmail.com

TB15 Re-engineering project Dec 2016 v1.0 Page 1/15

Overview of Procedure

1. Removed the top cover. Need to peel back the rubber matting on the underneath to expose
the M2.5 bolts. Removed the M2.5 bolts, removed the bracket for the USB-C cable and
unplug the cable and then carefully pry off the box top. There is a cable that plugs onto the
PCBA that connects to the top button. Don’t tear this off the board but unplug it.

2. I determined a number of ICs were running really hot with the Synaptics DP & USB hub
controllers almost hot enough to burn fingers. Heatsink the main suspects (4 chips).
See images in following pages.

3. With the lid closed there were still hot spots and on hot days still had function drop outs.
Found the display port connected monitors dropped out first then sometimes the USB or
Ethernet controllers. So, I designed and 3D printed a fan holding frame to hold a 50mm fan
in place and designed a fan controller that monitored internal temperatures and spun up the
fan. I found that I had to provide venting as well which was all part of the final design of 3D
printed parts.

So far it's all working fine and I ended up buying a 2nd TB15 on ebay and did the same number
on it with the same success.

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TB15 heatsinking
Can use heatshinks with adhesive thermal pads or stick down small heatsinks with thermal epoxy.In
my design the heatsinks could not be more than 10mm high so they could fit under the fan frame.

Synaptics VMM3330BJG
DP hub controller
Synaptics VMM3330BJG
DP hub controller

SMSC USB5537B
7 port SS/HS USB Hub controller

TPS65982
USB Type-C USB
Controller power switch
controller

I actually suspect the TPS65982 does not require heat sinking as it is a power switch controller
however it was hot and big enough for a heatsink so did it anyway.

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Power connection for fan controller.
To access soldering points, need to unscrew the audio connector above the power socket.

Red wire is +19.5V and solders to one of the pads of the SMD inductors.

Brown wire is GND and solders to the ground plane.

BEWARE ! This area of the circuit is capable of supplying 10A @ 20V. Fireworks and smoke could
result if you mess up.

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Fan parts & fan controller
Fan frame (3D printed ABS), 50mm 12V fan, bolts and nuts for fan mounting and the custom
designed fan speed controller.

The fan speed controller I designed was using some SMPS chips I had kicking around (LM78S40).
These are actually obsolete however they are quite nice as they have a built in op-amp.
This allowed me to develop the controller to spin the fan proportionally to the temperature sensed
by a 100K NTC thermistor. The SMPS design runs cool (so not to introduce yet more heat into the
hot box that is the TB15) and runs the 12V fan from 3V up to 9V depending on the temperature of
the NTC thermistor.

Appendix 1 : fan speed controller circuit schematic shows some details of the fan controller however
I have included this just for interest without any expectation that anyone would want to build this.
A simpler solution would be to just run the 12V fan from some regulated voltage between 5-7V. The
fan is not noisy when driven from this voltage but provides enough air for cooling. There are any
number of off the self small SMPS modules available that can accept 20V in and provide 5-7V DC out.

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Assembled fan in fan frame with controller

This mounts into two of the PCBA mounting points with 2 x M2.5 bolts.

One bolt is 28mm long and the other is 23mm long.

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Fan & fan controller mounted in case.

The fan assembly with controller screwed into the case.

Thermistor sensing one of the DP hub chip h/s temperature

Fan indictor LED cable

TB15 Re-engineering project Dec 2016 v1.0 Page 7/15

TB15 Re-engineering project Dec 2016 v1.0 Page 8/15
 Vents
Intake Vent.
The intake vent is on the same side as the USB-C cable socket.

Cut out diagram

52.5mm 46.25mm

2.5mm

25mm 17.5mm

Ø3.5mm hole for adj pot.

71mm Don’t need if dont have this

Pictures

Note hole cut into case to accept this vent.

This vent channels air into the fan intake area.
This is how it is positioned in box.

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With intake vent clicked into case.

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Outflow vent
The outflow vent is on the opposite side to the intake vent.

Cut out diagram

52.5mm 46.25mm

2.5mm

17.5mm

Outflow vent ready to be clicked into hole

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Rubber feet
Finally 3D printed some feet rather than sticking the rubber mat back on.

Printed with TPE rubber filament on UP! 3D Printer.

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Completed unit

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APPENDIX 1 – Fan speed controller schematic

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Appendix 2 : STL files

3D STL files for 3D printing contained in ZIP ‘Dock_STL.ZIP’

Fan Frame : ‘dell dock fan frame v8.stl’

Inlet vent : ‘dell dock side vent intake v2.stl’

Outlet vent : ‘dell dock side vent exhaust.STL’

Rubber feet : ‘rubberfeet.stl’

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