A go-playing friend of mine had a broken “Excalibur” chess clock that we here in Europe use extensively in go tournaments. The LCD was shattered and I don’t think they ship replacement parts:

Because the clock is not of much use without a display, I got to rip it apart to see what it contains. This particular clock is used quite a lot, so I thought I’d share the images. Note that you can click on pictures to view larger version of the image.

Screws were located under the rubber pads in the bottom of the clock:

The top came easily off, and it turns out there isn’t much else than the buttons attached:

Beneath the cover, a rather simple circuit is revealed – basically it’s just a few buttons, micro switches and a flip-flop mechanism for the big ones:

The controller chip itself is housed in an epoxy blob, so no details can be seen on the make and model:

The LCD seems to be directly controlled by the main circuit. It seems there’s not much to reuse from this clock in other projects, especially as the most potential part, the display, is broken. Too bad!