How To Reverse Engineer A PCB To Make A Schematic - Tutorial

[@chris7868]

I hope these videos are being archived somewhere in the event KZbin goes nuts one day and they disappear. This series has been such an incredible resource for me. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

I have two master copies of every video, on different hard drives,

[@uksuperrascal]

You can always download any videos from youtube and keep them in your own archive to watch anytime off line

[@DetlefAmend]

This was so much fun to shoot! Thanks for the great editing and the bleeps - I promise to be better in the future :D

[@RetroUpgrade]

Grete job Detlef :), i do it slightly different but get same end result :), looking forward to working with you :)

[@Freeknickers24]

shut up and keep the camera still

[@TheDivergentDrummer]

Ok, I haven't even watched this yet, just seen it come up, and let me tell you, I literally tried starting this last night lol. Perfect Timing.

[@harrygood4783]

In EDA you can also change the colour of the net to identify power nets, earth nets, ect . Which is accessed from properties of the net line and adding net names also makes the schematic more usable at a glance, and help identify individual nets labels together if it is an over crowded schematic with complex nets to nets, on two or more tabs.

[@andymouse]

KIcad 7 now has this facility built in you can import the images as you did but draw the traces directly in and create a schematic and PCB in the one piece of software and its also free, so only 1 piece of software to learn. Great video...cheers.

[@DJChol]

Yeah, you can see this in the KZbin channel from bwack where he uses that feature to reverse engineer a C64 PCB. It would be nice to see that feature here too.

[@DetlefAmend]

Hi Andymouse123 - sure that will work, too. When Richard asked me if we can do something like that, I opted for Photoshop cause it's my home turf. But with ya: if you only have to learn one piece of software, that's a good thing.

[@andymouse]

@@DetlefAmend Cheers !

[@andymouse]

@@DJChol The channel is 'bwack' ? I would like to see that..cheers.

[@DJChol]

@@andymouse Yes. He also uses GIMP.

[@zeothorn]

It can be done easier with a powerful bulb behinde the pcb so you can see the tracks from behinde and with a marker you can draw the tracks in the front most of pcb are fiberglass even the brown ones can reveal the tracks under a powerful light ,I've done this many times and worked for me.

[@off-hoursrepair8784]

excellent hands on demonstration. Love your content, always informative.

[@mjmeans7983]

Some companies will try to protect their design from reverse engineering by selecting some of the vias to not have plated through holes. So, the connection from top to bottom copper is made only when (or if) a leaded component is installed through that hole, thus making it difficult to probe without components installed. Or by adding otherwise unnecessary circuitry designed to make it difficult to probe which nets are connected to which components when components are installed. Or both.

[@nightshocker6908]

great video. I used to do this with a pen and paper, technology made this a lot easier to do.

[@luizfernandoreisbandeira476]

Thank you for showing How to make the reverse Engineering of a PCB

[@josephstikans392]

Great video and good teamwork guys.

[@shabbirahmad1654]

Your research is always new and young

[@KenWataco]

Excellent ! Thanks for the knowledge sharing. Nice !

[@essakhan-oh2vh]

How good is it you have made it a fun for those who want to refresh them

[@GapRecordingsNamibia]

Thank you Richard and Detlef, I would just like to say that this can be done in blender which is also freeware, I would think I am not the only one who can't afford photoshop, I for instance am sitting in a country that has an 18:1 ratio with the US$ and from there it just gets worse if you start talking £ or €. So blender is also an option..... Same type of workflow would need to be followed, Thank you to both of you gentlemen for your time and effort.

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

This is why we said we will also to do a 'ghetto' version, using free software and some of the ideas from here. As we mentioned, we used Photoshop as Det is totally familiar with this and we were trying to concentrate on the techniques rather than the actual software.

[@GapRecordingsNamibia]

@@LearnElectronicsRepair Yip Understood, just thought to mention it.... Again, Thank you for all your teaching!

[@RetroUpgrade]

I vote fore using Krita, free and fully featured , its really close to Photoshop in functionality :P, btw my first videos on my channel where all edited in blender XDDD

[@command8783]

pirating software remains an option. Here in south east Asia, even if you can afford it, why would you support a subcription busienss model if you don't own the software?

[@stephenhookings1985]

Or even Microsoft PowerPoint- I know that isn't freeware BUT a lot of businesses use it or schools / colleges. You can flip, stretch, use transparency etc.

[@thedvdaddy]

I really enjoyed this video! However, I was expecting a bit more from the software. Based on the initial 'messy' layout of components, I assumed the purpose of assigning nets was to click a button and have the software automatically connect matching nets to generate a schematic. Manually doing this felt a bit counterintuitive-it seems like it would make more sense to simply lay out the components and connect them as you go. You mentioned in the video that you could generate a PCB from the 'messy but net-connected' stage. Could you have tried that step to see if the tool might allow you to auto-design a schematic from the PCB layout?

[@dang48]

Nice job and thank you for posting this very informative video. Definitely helps for those projects where you may not have all the info you need to build the PCB. Just out of curiousity, is the circuit you reversed engineered actually a control module for the bleeper used in this video? 😉

[@yenaurapourtoulmonde]

Topic actually starts at 6:39 : with Photoshop and then reverse engineering is done in Easy EDA.

[@TheDrewFalcon]

Fantastic. Thank you very much for this.

[@bobs_ya_runkle]

Thanks guys! I learned a lot.

[@RixtronixLAB]

Nice video, thanks for sharing it with us, well done :)

[@MuellerNick]

In KiCAD, you could use the picture as a background. The rest is almost as easy as painting by numbers. Yes, I'm a KiCAD fan.

[@Enigma758]

4:47 Why are there 3 wires soldered in where there's supposed to be a TIP122 transistor?

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

I mounted the TIP122 on an external heatsink and fan

[@ianhewitt1858]

When Detlef say "becoming a Canarian " - it sounded a bit like the chorus on one of Boy Georges hit songs :-) I tried this technique a few years ago on the main board of a colour laser printer when I first found brushless motors and trying to figure out how they got controlled. It was a miserable failure!

[@stephenhookings1985]

One additional thing I do is to make a Copy of the image then use a digital eraser to rub out traces as I pick them and place onto Easyeda. When there are no traces left I must have finished.

[@paulharries8262]

Please do a GIMP or other no cost software version of this

[@electron7373]

You could make an SMD version from the schematic. This would be nice and compact. Great if a a display and microcontroller was added.

[@Sctronic209]

Fantastic video.

[@jw228w]

yes I dont have photoshop, ok with the ghetto method.took photos, need to create a Gerber file so they can make a schematic, also using Mac OS,so any advice thanks. John

[@karlharvymarx2650]

I was doing other things while watching so sorry if you were already doing the following. In KiCAD, I think you could put the photoshopped picture in as a background image in the board view. Then plop component footprints and wires over the image and then have KiCAD generate a schematic from the board view. In other words, I think KiCAD is bi in the sense you could start with a schematic and get a board or start with a board and get a schematic or if you're really swinging, do a little of each. At least I think I did that in the past. I would verify that I didn't hallucinate it but I'm in the middle of something else at the moment. If interested, I can check later on.

[@fredflickinger643]

You can go right to a new pcb using the high contrast traces views and photo lithography.

[@chris7868]

Re free software for image editing: Krita is probably a good open source photoshop alternative with the tools in similar places

[@_dpa3122]

Hello, First of all, thank you for your videos rich in teaching. With GIMP and KiCad I followed your footsteps and thanks to you I got the same schematic (btw I added the 2 Mohms resistor (R1) to power the TL431). At the end, I was puzzled with the schematic which I did not fully understand. Around U2 op-amp, I don't see the point of connecting R6 to the cathode of the 2.5V reference (TL431). I would rather have connected it to the output of U2 in order to isolate the 2.5V reference from the resistive bridge (R6-RV1). But then, what is the purpose of R5 connected to the positive input of the AOP? I would have connected it to ground to charge the op amp. I would appreciate your help to understand, thanks in advance.

[@Dutch_off_grid_homesteading]

Heya, this is all new for me but like to see it, but it's totally differant then how I did it wen I was in school 30 year ago I have the feeling that a lot of things I'm learning the 1st time lol

[@allelectronicsrepairs7165]

In KiCad there is no need to press "W" for wire. When you point to the end of a pin on an object and click it, KiCad automatically assumes you want a wire, and it starts creating one. Good video and great tips! Thank you, Jerry from Australia.

[@tokyo.peking]

Are the pcb2sch software ? TArget 3000, german sw ?

[@John_Smith__]

Can anyone tell me what is the channel of the new Canarian gentleman? I can not find it. Also of course we would like to see that version with Gimp.

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

www.youtube.com/@DetlefAmend it is German Language

[@John_Smith__]

@@LearnElectronicsRepair Thanks! I will also sub him :) !

[@DetlefAmend]

@@John_Smith__ working on an english version, but right now I'm pretty much occupied with all the moving and stuff. Stay tuned!

[@John_Smith__]

@@DetlefAmend I will ... and I think Richard is making sure Canary Island is going to become the Silicon Valley of Europe with all these Electronics KZbinrs moving in ...

[@eded8045]

All good .... but somehow i got lost when you started from Net drawings so I need to watch from there again

[@2009numan]

can a high amperage blow a usb port ?

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

Too much current can blow anything, unless there is some protection circuit in place

[@shagreobe]

A Gimp verson might be nice

[@samj1012]

Good video but too much lacing makes a student impatient as we need the short n sweet

[@frankbaron1608]

krita is also good graphics software. i sue that becasue it recognises graphics tablets

[@stevrgrs]

It’s cake if you have the traces. I want to know how to do it when you DONT have the traces :P

[@TheDivergentDrummer]

Question Richard, if you will. I have a few smaller PCB's here that I want o try this on, specifically LED drivers, ioT devices and ATX power supplies to name a few. My problem is, what do I do with Ic's that are unreadable? Can I cross reference the schematic to see possible part numbers based on the circuit it is being applied to?

[@DetlefAmend]

With specialized IC's (i.e. LED Drivers) it is probably better to follow the way mr Guru suggested: try to find the part number and check the datasheet. The more specialised the IC is, the fewer variations are possible. And you can probably get away with circuits suggested in the datasheet.

[@TheDivergentDrummer]

@@DetlefAmend Yeah, thing is, they are not all labelled, etched, or otherwise identified. Some ARE identifiable, but there are no datasheets available, at least not where i'm looking. Maybe that is the proble. Maybe I'm not looking in the right spot. I am using structured google searches, mouser, digikey, literally anything that will yield a datasheet, to no avail.

[@DetlefAmend]

@@TheDivergentDrummer I feel your pain. Some Chips are only for Chinese Mainland, so we westeners have little to no Chance to find any Datasheet.

[@izzzzzz6]

Nice

[@drumbyte]

Excellent use of photoshop!

[@hazim38780]

[@ElTelBaby]

ROFL 1st 2 view...

[@darnmartian9766]

I really don't see your need for all that fooling around, especially if you'd be using a new software for, there's more empirical way simply shine a bright light through the board from the copper Trace side and draw your schematic on a piece of paper.