Ready To Replace Your Outdated Circuit Board?

Are you ready to replace your current but outdated populated circuit board (PCB) with a new design?

If so, it may be time to re-engineer your old PCB. You can re-engineer an old PCB to current standards and replace obsolete components with new ready to purchase parts with project based reverse engineering. Often there is no limit on the board size or the amount of components whether through hole, surface mount or mixed.

Re-create lost or missing PCB manufacturing files or update an existing PCB with new capabilities. Reverse engineering enables you to take your current PCB and update it with a new circuit board that is structurally, functionally, and operationally identical to the board you are using now. Updating your old PCB has a number of benefits including utilizing up-to-date technologies, methods, and materials.

Unforeseen issues can occur in your organization that will necessitate reverse engineering your current PCB.  If your engineer has left your company and no one else knows what to do with the files, a good reverse engineering service provider will take the files and convert them into industry standard formats. These files can be used to make prototypes and production quantities of boards.

If you are faced with a PCB supplier that has gone out of business you can get the board reverse engineered within 4 – 6 weeks and many times faster with a rush order.  In order to copy or re-engineer a printed circuit board, every component on the board is identified and a draft bill-of-material for the project is created.

Best practices include a high resolution image of the PCB which is then blown up and mounted. The electronic components are taken off the circuit board and bonded to the photocopy of the circuit board. Values are measured for capacitors and resistors and notes are made on the bill-of-material. Once the BOM is complete, the electronic components are purchased.  A calibrated scanner is used to scan the board to recreate the trace pattern which enables the new bare boards to be created.  Once this process is complete and the assembled sample is sent and approved by the client, the final printed circuit board is used for duplication.

Scanning solutions include the ability to utilize fully stand-alone scanner- based re-engineering systems that enable the creation of CAD data (DXF/Gerber/Drill/CNC) from existing multilayer PCBs, parts, stencils, drawings, microfiche, PDF files, X-Ray images, etc. This allows for accurate reverse engineering and precise reproduction of data to exact FORM, FIT and FUNCTION for today’s high density PCB board designs, complex parts and tooling.  Contact sales@tomg115.sg-host.com or call us to discuss your reverse engineering needs.

Dana Jiron
Business Development
www.iecsolutions.com
951-245-6555