software to help reconstruct circuit diagram?

[james]

I'm trying to debug a circuit board but have no circuit diagram.

I could take a picture of the top and bottom of the board (only one copper
layer), line them up in photoshop (flip one of them) to re-construct the
circuit diagram.

Is there a software to help me do this: import a photos of a circuit board,
draw the components, connect them with wires. At this point the circuit
diagram would look very messy because it is optimized for circuit board
layout, not for reading. So I need the software to take this circuit diagram
and re-arrange it so that it looks good.

It's the opposite of a PCB layout software.

[D Yuniskis]

*Some* of this can be done with MasterCAM and its ilk.

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Mon, 18 Oct 2010 09:38:45 -0700, "james" <nos...@nospam.com> wrote:

>I'm trying to debug a circuit board but have no circuit diagram.
>
>I could take a picture of the top and bottom of the board (only one copper
>layer), line them up in photoshop (flip one of them) to re-construct the
>circuit diagram.

That's what I do, except that I use Irfanview for the purpose.
<http://www.irfanview.com>
Taking a photo of the bottom of the PCB is usually easy enough.
However, the component side is usually cluttered with parts requiring
considerable guesswork as to the location of traces and pads. When I
tried to use this method to reverse engineer a messy power supply, I
gave up and used a PCB layout program instead. For example:
<http://www.freepcb.com>
I used the easily obtained circuit side photograph as a template, and
did my best to reconstruct the board layout and traces.

More:
<http://www.instructables.com/id/Hack-The-Spy-Ear-and-Learn-to-Reverse-Engineer-a-C/step1/How-to-Reverse-Engineer-a-Circuit/>
<http://www.riccibitti.com/photoshop/photoediting.htm>

>Is there a software to help me do this: import a photos of a circuit board,
>draw the components, connect them with wires. At this point the circuit
>diagram would look very messy because it is optimized for circuit board
>layout, not for reading. So I need the software to take this circuit diagram
>and re-arrange it so that it looks good.
>
>It's the opposite of a PCB layout software.

I found this with Google. No experience or opinion:
<http://www.deltasoft.com.cn/english/index.htm>

--
Jeff Liebermann je...@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

[N_Cook]

james <nos...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:i9ht6m$8e4$1...@speranza.aioe.org...

Constructing a node-map may also help

[N_Cook]

N_Cook <div...@tcp.co.uk> wrote in message
news:i9jgp2$59g$1...@news.eternal-september.org...

After scanning in use negative and excess contrast and edge detection etc to
highlight tracks and then print off at larger scale to make more manageable,
overlaying by hand main components. Find the main rails and mark as red,
black and green say for +/-/0 rails . Leave out caps in the first pass in
unravelling. Use node-map to predict likely placements of components in
logical schematic.

[Man-wai Chang]

> Is there a software to help me do this: import a photos of a circuit
> board, draw the components, connect them with wires. At this point the
> circuit diagram would look very messy because it is optimized for
> circuit board layout, not for reading. So I need the software to take
> this circuit diagram and re-arrange it so that it looks good.

this page lists electronic design apps
some are freeware

http://www.msbdesign.co.uk/software.html

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