Intel RealSense L515 Teardown
Posted inSystems & Sensors

Intel RealSense L515 Teardown

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The Intel Realsense L515 is a nice little LIDAR Depth Camera. Intel is planning on discontinuing this sensor in early 2022, however I have an old one that I want to tear apart. I am not adding much text to this, I am mostly just sharing the images. Please discuss any parts you can identify in the comments below.

Expanded CAD image of the L515 sensor. https://www.intelrealsense.com/lidar-camera-l515/
Sad broken sensor with a cracked front glass. Note that the glass is Gorilla Glass which is supposed to be difficult to break…
1/4-20 Mounting hole and USBc port above it
Image with the glass pulled back from the sensor. The glass is glued on and difficult to remove. I ended up spilling a bit of blood getting the glass off.
Nice view of the sensor with the glass front removed. You can see the RGB camera at the top of the image with the knurled looking lens. The Bosch BMI085 IMU is in that top RGB camera unit.
Pulling the large metal heatsink up reveals the circuit boards underneath. This bottom circuit board contains the USB port and the the auxiliary port. The circuit board attached to the back of the heatsink has the laser emitter and mirror.
Heat sink module with the RGB Camera + IMU visible. Also you can see the area where the LIDAR shines through the heatsink.
Under the aluminum block heatsink, note that there in another black heatsink below this.
This is the bottom side of the black heatsink mentioned above, as well as the bottom circuit board with the USB port (top left) and auxiliary port (bottom left).
Closeup of the laser emitter board and mirror
and here with the can lifted

I hope you enjoyed this quick teardown and found it interesting.

Click here to see how to use these Realsense cameras.

Click here to see a teardown of the Intel Realsense D435 camera

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1 Comment

  1. Luke
    Reply
    July 1, 2026,

    I believe my L515 has a problem with the USB-C port. These photos are great and have already provided me with a lot of answers. However, I can’t tell if it Is it possible to get to the USB port whilst leaving everything above it intact By intact, I mean taking out the glass, camera + LiDAR, heatsink etc as one piece so that I can get at the bottom PCB with the USB connector on it? I’ve removed the bottom two screws but that seems to have achieved practically nothing. I don’t want to force anything apart if I don’t have to because I would very much like to try and rescue this device if I can. Can anyone help?

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