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Circuit Board Reverse Engineering Advice
By Bryan Piernot, Owner, OEMPCBR, Middleton, WI H
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ave you tried reverse engineering of circuit boards for your aging equip- ment before? Thought about it? Haven’t thought about it? Heard about it? Didn’t know you could? Great idea right? Replacement parts for the
most complex component in your equipment: the electronics. If only! Why do this in the first place? Because you have some serious problems
with old, worn out PCBAs in some expensive equipment that you would like to keep running. It makes little sense to repair an obviously burned out com- ponent, when the other components on the board are just as worn out or pos- sibly damaged from the failure of the first component. The reverse engineering process starts with the existing board, but there
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are many components “upstream” and “downstream” that the circuit board is driving. That fact doesn’t always allow for a one-for-one replacement. Some components on the burned out board may not be available any more. Many other components need to be calibrated or have integrated software or “firmware” that re- quire the vast experience that only seasoned engineers can bring to the table. Known glitches or failures
in existing boards can also be ad- dressed at this time. Many tech- nology improvements may make it possible to fix minor bugs that have plagued a good working me- chanical machine from the start. If you have already made an attempt at contracting out the reverse engi-
Implementing the circuit board reverse engineering process piecemeal across multiple vendors is at best a roll of the dice... Use one seasoned, experienced vendor, and many inherent
problems can go away.
neering of a circuit board you’ve probably vowed never to do it again. It’s also likely that you know of horror stories that sent you running in the other direc- tion. If you haven’t thought about it or didn’t know you could, I’ll bet if you asked someone about it you’d get an earful why you shouldn’t even think about it. Why so problematic? Circuit board reverse engineering is either successful
by luck or by design and follow through. There are so many places that things can go wrong in the process; one missed detail and everything goes quickly south. Implementing the circuit board reverse engineering process piecemeal
across multiple vendors is at best a roll of the dice. One vendor for creating the required files, another for building the boards, trying to integrate the new board yourself, no help from the vendor who “reverse engineered” the boards for you, no vendor to easily order up additional copies, no follow-on support at all. If you don’t have a maintenance team full of seasoned engineers, you’d se- riously better be keeping your fingers crossed. Use one seasoned, experienced vendor, and many inherent problems can go away. The piecemeal approach is one of the primary reasons reverse engineer-
ing of circuit boards has a bad reputation. Ideally, to do circuit board reverse engineering the right way, you should go start-to-finish with a single vendor and that vendor should have a plan. This plan should consider the entire process and address each step along the way. The plan should identify and have ready to implement contingencies for all the potential pitfalls and prob- lems associated with circuit board reverse engineering. In other words, a plan that will assure success. Trying to take the “general contractor vendor” approach to implement
the circuit board reverse engineering process would be a gamble also. If you don’t want to see finger pointing and nothing happening, well, good luck. So a start-to-finish circuit board reverse engineering vendor should not only have a plan, the company should be intimately involved every step of the way in the reverse engineering of electronic circuit boards. Responsibility should not stop when fabrication files have been generat-
ed. It should not stop when fabrication files have been used to build boards up. It shouldn’t even stop when the first new board is working in the machine. It should really only stop when the customer has all the working boards he needs and can easily order more at any time. If you decide to go through another or a new circuit board reverse engineer-
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ing project, please, the industry doesn’t need any more bad experiences resulting from trying to piecemeal or general contract the process. Find a vendor who will be there with you from beginning to end, directly involved in not only the man- agement but also the implementation of the process which will lead to a success- ful circuit board reverse engineering project. This is the right way to do it. Our company has decades of electronic design experience and we are experts in re- verse engineering. Years of total immersion in every facet of cradle-to-grave elec- tronic design, development, and retirement have equipped our company with a unique arsenal of tools that we bring to bear on electronic circuit board reverse engineering. Anyone who decides to embark on a circuit board reverse engineering
project must understand the process, know what to look for in a circuit board reverse engineering vendor, be prepared for what can go wrong. Do all this and do it right, and you can have a positive and successful reverse engineer-
ing experience. Contact: OEM Printed Circuit Board Replacements, 8383 Greenway
Blvd., Middleton, WI 53562 % 888-7497-8886 E-mail:
bryan.piernot@oempcbr.com Web:
www.oempcbr.com r
July, 2014
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