[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":517},["ShallowReactive",2],{"project-39501073":3},{"id":4,"name":5,"line":6,"line_source":7,"title":8,"url":9,"domain":5,"maker":10,"posted_at":11,"year":12,"points":13,"comments":14,"rank_in_year":15,"shown_in_year":16,"top":17,"tier":18,"category":19,"subcategory":20,"format":21,"keywords":22,"reception":27,"sentiment":28,"stance_mix":29,"scored_comments":34,"aspects":35,"strip":45,"post_text":47,"what":48,"said":86,"maker_in_thread":161,"shape":172,"grid":177,"attempts":475,"same_week":480,"maker_shows":37,"maker_hidden":509,"reader_version":510,"card":511},"39501073","usoldering.com","Reverse-Engineering a Switch Lite with 1,917 wires","title","Show HN: Reverse-Engineering a Switch Lite with 1,917 wires","https:\u002F\u002Fusoldering.com\u002Fswitch-lite\u002F","uSoldering",1708871274,2024,513,114,63,3515,2,"legend","hardware","reverse engineering pcb boardview","web_app",[23,24,25,26],"boardview","pcb reverse engineering","netlist","boardscan","curious",0.091,{"positive":30,"neutral":31,"mixed":32,"critical":33},11,27,0,6,44,{"pricing":36,"idea":38,"execution":40,"performance":42,"docs":43,"design":44},{"positive":32,"critical":37},1,{"positive":39,"critical":17},3,{"positive":41,"critical":39},5,{"positive":37,"critical":32},{"positive":32,"critical":32},{"positive":32,"critical":32},[39,32,32,32,32,32,32,32,32,32,32,46,41,39,39,41,46,41,39,39,32,39,39,39,39,39,41,32,32,32,32,32,37,41,39,39,37,32,39,39],4,"Hey Hackers. This is a project I solo-developed that turns completed PCB assemblies into an easy to use boardview with some accompanying boardscans. There are lots of easier and better ways of doing this, but this is an experimentation to do it as cheaply as possible, with the highest quality and lowest chance of errors. The technical details are in the link.\n\nMost public boardviews are almost entirely the result of industrial espionage, other than a few encrypted subscription based software platforms that provide extensive access. The process output is released as donationware, as my main con",{"problem":49,"audience":55,"pricing":67,"motivation":77,"time_to_build":81,"stack":82,"openness":83,"stage":84,"team_size":85},{"value":50,"source":51,"evidence":52},"Creating boardviews and netlists for completed PCBs without relying on industrial espionage sources.","maker",[53],{"id":54},"post",{"value":56,"source":57,"evidence":58},"Board repair and reverse-engineering hobbyists and technicians.","inferred",[59,63],{"id":60,"by":61,"text":62},"39501418","tubetime","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…",{"id":64,"by":65,"text":66},"39502504","blubbity","This 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…",{"value":68,"source":51,"evidence":69},"Donationware; maker considering crowdfunding and open sourcing parts.",[70,71,74],{"id":54},{"id":72,"by":10,"text":73},"39502267","The original goal was to just turn an idea I thought was possible and figure out exactly how to execute it. The current goal is something like improve and iterate, while seeing…",{"id":75,"by":10,"text":76},"39502673","A bounty hunter-like crowdfunding system would probably be ideal. I could probably hack together some forum software with each thread being a different crowdfunding campaign.…",{"value":78,"source":51,"evidence":79},"Make boardviews as cheaply as possible and share them rather than sell, given piracy culture.",[80],{"id":54},null,[],"open_source","launched","solo",{"praise":87,"objections":105,"requests":128,"questions":141,"alternatives":149},[88],{"value":89,"source":90,"evidence":91},"Impressive, well-executed project and a great hack.","commenter",[92,93,97,101],{"id":60,"by":61,"text":62},{"id":94,"by":95,"text":96},"39501990","gargablegar","Such a great project, really enjoyed it. I’m a hardware engineer. I really appreciate this",{"id":98,"by":99,"text":100},"39505691","eichin","This 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\"…",{"id":102,"by":103,"text":104},"39505595","nxobject","Your 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…",[106,121],{"value":107,"source":90,"evidence":108},"Soldering 1,900+ wires does not scale; commercial RE services and flying probes are cheaper.",[109,113,117],{"id":110,"by":111,"text":112},"39506005","rasz","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…",{"id":114,"by":115,"text":116},"39502512","crote","It'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…",{"id":118,"by":119,"text":120},"39506453","userbinator","PCB 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…",{"value":122,"source":90,"evidence":123},"A netlist alone is of limited use without a schematic.",[124],{"id":125,"by":126,"text":127},"39505506","xt00","If you \u002F somebody is doing the sand and scan or xray\u002FCT method (which you could pay somebody to do rather than buying a CT machine), then you can create a gerber -- then manually…",[129],{"value":130,"source":90,"evidence":131},"Open source the tooling and build a flying probe or automated version.",[132,136,140],{"id":133,"by":134,"text":135},"39502049","analognoise","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…",{"id":137,"by":138,"text":139},"39501802","kayson","Wow 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…",{"id":64,"by":65,"text":66},[142],{"value":143,"source":90,"evidence":144},"How does crosstalk affect the measurements?",[145],{"id":146,"by":147,"text":148},"39502798","486sx33","Isn’t crosstalk an issue ? Just wondering",[150,156],{"value":151,"source":90,"evidence":152},"Chinese PCB reverse-engineering services and flying probe machines.",[153,154,155],{"id":110,"by":111,"text":112},{"id":114,"by":115,"text":116},{"id":118,"by":119,"text":120},{"value":157,"source":90,"evidence":158},"Sand-and-scan layer imaging.",[159,160],{"id":60,"by":61,"text":62},{"id":125,"by":126,"text":127},{"comments":162,"answered":163,"key":164},13,8,[165,166,169],{"id":75,"text":76},{"id":167,"text":168},"39501800","The issue I was concerned about was dealing with high-density interconnect microvias. This PCB is 10-layers with a core of 4 layers of normal vias, and 3 layers of lasered…",{"id":170,"text":171},"39502396","Making a machine to automagically remove a tiny bit of material and image the result over and over would be easy for me. The image processing to take the stack of 3D sequential…",{"commenters":173,"max_depth":174,"maker_replies":162,"first_comment_mins":175,"lifespan_hours":176},68,9,50,206,[178,182,186,189,193,196,198,200,203,206,209,212,215,217,220,223,226,229,231,234,237,240,242,245,248,250,252,254,256,259,262,263,267,269,273,276,277,280,281,284,286,288,290,292,295,298,301,304,307,311,315,317,320,322,325,328,329,332,335,337,340,342,344,346,349,351,352,355,359,362,365,367,370,372,375,377,378,381,384,387,389,392,394,396,398,401,403,405,407,409,411,414,417,419,422,423,427,429,431,433,437,439,441,443,446,449,452,456,458,460,465,467,469,471],[179,32,39,180,181,32],"39501808","maker\u002Fneutral\u002Fpricing","TheJoeMan",[183,32,32,184,185,32],"39502473","other\u002Fneutral\u002Fnone","chx",[187,32,32,184,188,32],"39502567","fnordpiglet",[190,32,32,191,192,32],"39503379","commenter\u002Fneutral\u002Fnone","tamimio",[194,32,32,191,195,32],"39505805","krater23",[197,32,32,184,188,32],"39505939",[199,32,32,184,111,32],"39506019",[201,32,32,184,202,32],"39507304","david_allison",[204,32,32,184,205,32],"39507389","HeWhoLurksLate",[207,32,32,184,208,32],"39508429","nikanj",[210,32,32,184,211,32],"39520806","ArcticLandfall",[213,32,32,184,214,32],"39516904","sangnoir",[216,32,32,184,188,32],"39518713",[218,32,32,184,219,32],"39519707","rgarrett88",[221,32,32,191,222,32],"39523130","hoseja",[224,32,32,184,225,32],"39502816","rescbr",[227,32,32,184,228,32],"39503274","ckocagil",[230,32,32,184,185,32],"39503377",[232,32,32,191,233,32],"39504519","Retr0id",[235,32,32,184,236,32],"39504706","billforsternz",[238,32,32,184,239,32],"39506550","metalcrow",[241,32,32,184,185,32],"39506687",[243,32,32,191,244,32],"39507436","troad",[246,32,32,191,247,32],"39528561","ls612",[249,32,32,191,244,32],"39533126",[251,32,32,191,247,32],"39533282",[253,32,32,191,244,32],"39534773",[255,32,32,191,239,32],"39544058",[257,32,32,184,258,32],"39509192","KennyBlanken",[260,32,32,191,261,32],"39511410","apetresc",[75,32,32,180,10,37],[264,32,39,265,266,32],"39507563","project\u002Fneutral\u002Fidea","hakfoo",[60,37,41,268,61,32],"project\u002Fpositive\u002Fnone",[270,37,39,271,272,32],"39501601","project\u002Fneutral\u002Fexecution","willis936",[274,37,32,184,275,32],"39501665","alright2565",[167,37,32,271,10,37],[278,37,41,279,275,32],"39501881","project\u002Fpositive\u002Fexecution",[170,37,32,271,10,37],[282,37,39,265,283,32],"39502630","Keyframe",[285,37,39,271,275,32],"39505183",[287,37,39,271,272,32],"39522961",[289,37,32,184,138,32],"39501718",[291,37,32,271,10,37],"39501699",[293,37,41,279,294,32],"39502294","archi42",[296,37,39,265,297,32],"39503695","MuffinFlavored",[299,37,39,265,300,32],"39504249","nyanpasu64",[302,37,39,265,303,32],"39507596","MegaDeKay",[305,37,41,279,306,32],"39509677","abricot",[308,37,39,309,310,32],"39507927","maker\u002Fneutral\u002Fnone","cinntaile",[312,17,41,313,314,32],"39504262","project\u002Fpositive\u002Fperformance","punnerud",[316,17,32,309,10,37],"39504800",[318,17,39,319,314,32],"39504996","maker\u002Fneutral\u002Fdocs",[321,17,32,184,111,32],"39506064",[323,17,39,180,324,32],"39506390","andersa",[326,17,39,319,327,32],"39522256","gasi",[133,39,39,265,134,32],[330,39,39,265,331,32],"39502340","bsder",[333,39,32,191,334,32],"39504725","ooterness",[336,39,32,191,331,32],"39505046",[338,39,39,265,339,32],"39506251","CamperBob2",[341,39,32,184,134,32],"39505153",[343,39,32,184,331,32],"39514456",[110,46,37,345,111,32],"project\u002Fcritical\u002Fexecution",[347,46,32,184,348,32],"39509729","imtringued",[137,41,41,350,138,32],"project\u002Fpositive\u002Fidea",[72,41,32,309,10,37],[353,41,39,309,354,32],"39504674","nativeit",[356,33,39,357,358,32],"39503150","project\u002Fneutral\u002Fdesign","mNovak",[360,33,39,357,361,32],"39503561","eternauta3k",[363,33,39,357,364,32],"39504463","flutas",[366,33,39,271,358,32],"39506003",[368,33,41,279,369,32],"39504505","dclowd9901",[371,33,37,345,334,32],"39504701",[373,33,39,357,374,32],"39509279","ginko",[102,376,41,350,103,32],7,[98,163,41,279,99,32],[379,163,32,380,10,37],"39505966","maker\u002Fneutral\u002Fexecution",[382,174,32,184,383,32],"39502796","newsclues",[385,174,32,184,386,32],"39503737","indrora",[388,174,32,184,383,32],"39504264",[390,174,32,184,391,32],"39504315","atlas_hugged",[393,174,32,184,383,32],"39504707",[395,174,32,184,348,32],"39509057",[397,174,32,184,383,32],"39510409",[399,174,32,184,400,32],"39599447","aortega",[402,174,32,184,391,32],"39504299",[404,174,32,184,383,32],"39504720",[406,174,32,184,400,32],"39599392",[408,174,32,184,348,32],"39509026",[410,174,32,184,400,32],"39599375",[412,174,32,184,413,32],"39506717","snvzz",[415,174,32,184,416,32],"39510739","quenix",[418,174,32,184,400,32],"39599364",[125,420,37,421,126,32],10,"project\u002Fcritical\u002Fidea",[64,30,41,350,65,32],[424,425,39,309,426,32],"39502390",12,"mkoryak",[428,425,32,309,10,37],"39502801",[430,162,39,357,275,32],"39501757",[432,162,32,309,10,37],"39504131",[434,435,37,421,436,32],"39501753",14,"barbegal",[438,435,32,191,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CMS",351,"dev_tools",false,"v2",{"id":512,"name":5,"line":6,"ai":509,"cat":19,"year":12,"points":13,"comments":14,"rec":27,"s":513,"top":17,"kw":514,"maker":10,"domain":5,"tier":18,"attempts":17,"strip":515,"url":9,"mix":516,"praise":89,"objection":107,"sub":20},39501073,0.09,[23,24,25,26],"3000000000045335453303333350000015331033",[30,31,32,33],1794036650320]