Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange
Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [reverse-engineering]

The process of taking a completed system and determining details of its design by analysing it; may have legal limitations or ramifications in different jurisdictions.

337 questions
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How can I reverse engineer a simple through-hole board?

How can I reverse engineer a simple through-hole board? Trying to do it by eye gets confusing because it's easy to lose track of component orientation and location while flipping the board over. Maybe there's a computer assisted technique that would…
Vitim.us
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Odd PCB Layout for Voltage Regulator

I am reverse-engineering a board which has a Xilinx Spartan 3E FPGA, with VCCAUX powered by a 2.5 volt regulator. Below is the PCB layout for the regulator part of the circuit, and something seems very fishy to me. My apologies for the horrible…
DerStrom8
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Is it truly impossible to tell what a CPU is doing?

Computer programmers often recite the mantra that x86 instructions are totally opaque: Intel tells us they are doing something, but there is no hope that anyone can verify what's happening, so if the NSA tells them to backdoor their RNGs, then we…
user14717
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Is it possible to reverse engineer a chip design?

Can we make something like chip reader, which can understand chip design and generate blueprint of it?
Kulin Choksi
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Why does a mouse need a crystal?

I was looking at this schematic for an old (pre USB) mouse: when I noticed it had a crystal on it (Y1). I was curious why a mouse would need a timer? Wouldn't it be able to use the clock from the computer? Also if it has its own crystal couldn't…
Tyler Hilbert
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Identify this type of diode from the 1970s (1.3V forward)?

I am currently reverse engineering the electronics of a Pentax Electro Spotmatic camera from the early 1970s. I have the circuit mostly figured out but now I want to find out more about the particular components used. The component in question is a…
Edwin Steiner
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Why split the resistance on either side of an LED?

In the circuit below, is there any reason why we can't combine R1 and R2 into one 4 kΩ resistor in either location? simulate this circuit – Schematic created using CircuitLab I am reverse engineering a window controller board, which is no longer…
bobjunga
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Which glass encapsulated component is this?

I'm trying to reverse engineer this Chinese power supply and I came across this component: Here it is on the circuit board: And here's a close-up: It has a glass packaging, similar to a diode but it isn't polarised. It also has a red strip on the…
Sol
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Studying the PCB of a 70s calculator. What were they thinking?

I've been studying the PCB from an ELSI 8002 calculator from 1974. I'm thinking of repurposing the case for a project, though now that I've fixed it (by re soldering the battery connectors) I don't know if I can bear to pull it apart. (sniff) Maybe,…
futurebird
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Legality of Reverse Engineering

If there was a "law/legal" stack exchange site I'd post it there, but it's in its infant stages in Area 51. I'm a musician and an electrical engineering student. I've designed a modification to the pickup system of my acoustic/electric guitar that I…
Andrew
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Is it possible to reverse engineer an analogue IC from a physical example?

Lately I've been investigating custom ICs developed by Roland in the late 70s/Early 80s for their analogue synthesizers. They stopped manufacturing these components around 1989, there are no datasheets available and they will not release, or do not…
blarg
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Why does this EPROM have comb-like structures around the wire bonding pads?

I took some pictures of a Microchip EPROM die from the late 80s / early 90s (I can't recall the exact part number). The wire bonding pads are surrounded by a comb-like structure. What is the purpose of this structure?
Scott Lawson
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Remove an LED from a circuit

I have bought a webcam from which I would like to remove an LED (burning it is also fine for me). By doing so, I could obviously change the way the circuit works, so my questions are: Should I remove the LED (or its resistor) or burn it? Is a burnt…
Nitay
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What protocol is this waveform?

I'm trying to reverse engineer a communication line between two components. However for debugging I'm connecting to only one of them, powering it up and looking at the signal. I have no experience with this so I'm really stumbling around with some…
AntoineG
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How does this circuit work? 48VDC relay and 1.2VDC battery from 230VAC

In order to repair a programmable timer plug, I'm doing some "reverse engineering" on it, it's not for the cost (about $5) but more for learning and recycle thought. I draw the scheme but can't figure out how it is working. With only some…
ROUGEXIII
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