REVERSE ENGINEER A BOARD - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 06, 2012, 03:00:26 pm
content: Say i have a board and want to make a copy. What do i do ? do i have to lay out the board manually track by track ? will fab houses do it for me ?

author: jeroen74
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2012, 03:41:19 pm
content: Remove all components, then scan it. Then with a router remove material to get to next layer, repeat. In the far-east there seem to be companies that can do this almost fully automatedI think a fab house can work from a scan, or maybe there's software that convert bitmap information to gerber.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 06, 2012, 03:49:35 pm
content: I think this is just double sided, would be great if we can just give them the board and they copy it.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2012, 05:55:10 pm
content: Quote from: jeroen74 on November 06, 2012, 03:41:19 pmit is fully automated. you know how they do it ? they stick it in a MR machine. instant cross sectional view. some software then extracts gerber data. they can do this immensely precise.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 06, 2012, 06:15:10 pm
content: is that an attemp at sarcasm ?, the stupid thing is that these are our boards! but the prats i work for didn't draw up a contract and tried to decide that they are entitled to the design rights. So guess who's job it is to put the shit back in the horse!

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2012, 06:42:11 pm
content: You always find some left over when you finish stuffing. Just about enough for a sarmie for all concerned.Might be easier to redo the board if you have the schematic, and just call it V2.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 06, 2012, 06:44:25 pm
content: that is what I explained

author: Pak_Engineer
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2012, 06:45:28 pm
content: http://lspcorp.com/is what you need.. Although it might be better and cheaper to scan the thing yourself and do it the hard way if it's just a one-off thing.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 06, 2012, 06:50:33 pm
content: nah, I'll have to sort this one myself

author: Bored@Work
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2012, 08:05:12 pm
content: Really, just google PCB cloning, PCB reverse engineering service, and similar terms. More than one company out there, not all of the type you want to do business with.

author: WhiteFireDragon
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2012, 10:11:13 pm
content: I wanted to attempt to reverse engineer some PCBs too, haven't had to the time to try it yet, but this seems like a good indepth tutorial on how to do it. If you try it, let me know if it works:http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-reverse-engineer-a-schematic-from-a-circuit/

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 07, 2012, 07:57:54 am
content: They won't spend any money on this. I need to get hold of a diagram, a populated board to get a diagram from or just make a copy in kicad.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 07, 2012, 10:02:38 am
content: There used to be something for this atwww.depcb.orgbut that seems to have moved tohttps://github.com/unixdj/depcb

author: deephaven
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 07, 2012, 01:30:41 pm
content: How complicated is the board, how many parts?

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 07, 2012, 02:50:13 pm
content: not sure, probably nothing I can't handle.

author: JuKu
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 07, 2012, 02:58:02 pm
content: http://mhtest.com/scanning.shtmlNo connection, other than I used them once, and the scan quality was good enough to go to production as-is. i was fully prepared to re-draw the whole thing or at least edit some, but there was no need. Naturally, you only get Gerber data, not something you can develop further.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 07, 2012, 03:00:02 pm
content: that might be the problem, i need to keep modifying this later. I think I'm going to be able to lay hands on an assembled board so providing he has not rubbed the chip markings off i can draw up a schematic and do it properly.