usoldering.com
Hardware
reverse engineering pcb boardview
SHOW HN2024
How HN took it
11 positive, 27 neutral or asking, 0 mixed, 6 critical, out of 44 comments about the project. Thread score +0.09.
Execution: 5 for, 3 againstIdea: 3 for, 2 againstPricing: 0 for, 1 againstPerformance: 1 for, 0 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Impressive, well-executed project and a great hack.
From 4 comments
great project! i ran into it the other day and was impressed with the number of wires. i've been reverse engineering PCBs (mostly 2-4 layers) for a few years now and this is a…
tubetime on HNSuch a great project, really enjoyed it. I’m a hardware engineer. I really appreciate this
gargablegar on HNThis is amazing (particular the hand soldering - I love the genre of "this is impossible, you'd need to do this thing thousands of times" "so I did the thing thousands of times"…
eichin on HNYour brute-force approach to finding hidden connections is simple but brilliant. I know a lot of current hobbyist reverse-engineering efforts have to go a lot further, are…
nxobject on HN
Objections
Soldering 1,900+ wires does not scale; commercial RE services and flying probes are cheaper.
From 3 comments
Soldering required here is _INSANE_. There are industrial flying probe machines that can perform same task in fully automated manner with no soldering, but typical Chinese RE…
rasz on HNIt's definitely a really cool project, but this doesn't really look like something that would scale. While a boardview is nice to have, investing what looks like hundreds of…
crote on HNPCB RE services are pretty cheap in China and the far East, and they use a lot of automation to do the work of creating the netlist from the pad locations --- the recognition and…
userbinator on HN
A netlist alone is of limited use without a schematic.
From 1 comment
If you / somebody is doing the sand and scan or xray/CT method (which you could pay somebody to do rather than buying a CT machine), then you can create a gerber -- then manually…
xt00 on HN
Requests
Open source the tooling and build a flying probe or automated version.
From 3 comments
You’re right, but I don’t want to solder 2k wires to things. Last time I “professionally” reverse engineered a board we sent it out to get a CT scan of it, and got delivered a…
analognoise on HNWow I would've loved to have something like this. In the last few months I tried reverse engineering a Dell server motherboard (just the power supply interface) and a Lenovo…
kayson on HNThis is completely brilliant! If the painful part is the soldering, and the novel part is the imaging, there is definitely opportunity here. Seems like an opportunity to create a…
blubbity on HN
Questions
How does crosstalk affect the measurements?
From 1 comment
Isn’t crosstalk an issue ? Just wondering
486sx33 on HN
Alternatives named
Chinese PCB reverse-engineering services and flying probe machines.
From 3 comments
Soldering required here is _INSANE_. There are industrial flying probe machines that can perform same task in fully automated manner with no soldering, but typical Chinese RE…
rasz on HNIt's definitely a really cool project, but this doesn't really look like something that would scale. While a boardview is nice to have, investing what looks like hundreds of…
crote on HNPCB RE services are pretty cheap in China and the far East, and they use a lot of automation to do the work of creating the netlist from the pad locations --- the recognition and…
userbinator on HN
Sand-and-scan layer imaging.
From 2 comments
great project! i ran into it the other day and was impressed with the number of wires. i've been reverse engineering PCBs (mostly 2-4 layers) for a few years now and this is a…
tubetime on HNIf you / somebody is doing the sand and scan or xray/CT method (which you could pay somebody to do rather than buying a CT machine), then you can create a gerber -- then manually…
xt00 on HN