Re: [EE] Reverse engineering a product

They're trying to avoid telling a major client the design has changed (it
has, it's been RE)
Their design house has refused to handover the files
All they have is a sample.

Would not poke with a long stick, sounds dodgy as hell and like a huge
liability trap



On Sat, 26 Jul 2025 at 06:50, Neil <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I'm in discussion with an entity who wants a couple products reverse
> engineered. It's actually their products (and have their brand), but
> they've parted ways with their CEM/design house who now doesn't want to
> hand over the design & assembly files. And they need to be the same as
> they are currently, else it may re-trigger a re-evaluation/approval by
> one of their major clients. What they need is gerbers, BOM, and assembly
> files so they can continue to make the product.
>
> For one product, I have a schematic, list of component part numbers (not
> calling it a BOM as there are no quantities), copper layout for all
> layers, and a sample assembled product.
> For the other product, all I have is the copper layout for all layers,
> and a sample assembled product.
>
> I'm trying to figure out what methods are available to reverse-engineer
> these products back to gerber and assembly files so they can continue to
> have it made by another CEM.
> For one product I can pretty much re-design the board from the
> schematic, but not sure how to figure out the component parameters (not
> just values like 0.1uf, but also tolerances, thermal characteristics,
> etc). One is a very tight board with lots of mosfets so thermal design
> will be important.
> For the other product, I can come up with a non-valued schematic (so I
> know where say capacitors and resistors would be), but won't easily know
> what the values are. Can all of these be measured?
>
> The products may be able to be re-engineered, but I expect re-interating
> prototypes to finalize the design would be somewhat different and would
> take longer.
>
> Any suggestions here? Are they any design houses that specialize in this?
>
> Cheers,
> -Neil.
>
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-- 
Clint. M0UAW IO83

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