Replicate board layout from image (Reverse engineer comodore C64 board)

Projects
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NOTICE… I’m new user so i have alldready hit the limit on how much i can reply etc… I will have to wait 20 hours more :frowning: :frowning:

Hi

First post so dont roast me to much

i just imported the eagle schematic and board. board is totally untouched in eagle as its bigger than the free version allows

I’m trying to replicate an old pcb and i even got the board scanned so i could place components and trace the tracks on top of it

what is the most easy way to do that without having to learn to much to get the job done?

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i used the bitmap to component tool to create mod files for the 2 eco layers

question is for the back side of the board, should the pic be mirrored or not?

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It is not generally recommended to not work on the PCB without a finished schematic.

Welcome to the KiCad forums!

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i think you did not see my first post… “i just imported the eagle schematic…”

so i do have a schematic and a board, i want to use the pictures of the board i’m reproducing to place the components and trace tracks

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In KiCad, all layers should appear as if viewed from the top, so if you have a scanned image/photo of the bottom side, it will need to be mirrored.

I’m fairly confused about what you have done so far. KiCad can read Eagle PCB files directly if they are Eagle v6 (XML format). Other third party tools can read binary and schematic parts of Eagle projects. The free version of Eagle can be used to read older Eagle projects and save them as XML, even if the board exceeds size allowed for editing.

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Yeah, same here.

Sorry for my misunderstanding!

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so far

imported schematic and board
created mod files of the 2 sides/photos of the pcb i’m reproducing

board does have all the components placed in one corner… i could not place them in eagle as the free version does not allow big enough board…

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Do you mean you redrew the schematic in KiCad? If so, it would still be a lot easier to import or convert the Eagle .BRD file than trace over an image.

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No i imported it… i imported both the SCH and BRD

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I’m just very confused. Do you have the original project in Eagle? If you can post it, I could convert it.

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1920×1040 114 KB

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1920×1040 120 KB

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Ok, so why the need to trace over an image?

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@bobc Now I think he means that he used the ECO layers to copy the image of the existing product into PcbNew. Now he needs to move the parts to where they were originally located on the copper layer.

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YES… that is what i want to do

how do i insert the mod files in to the eco layer?

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Ok, it seems you have decided to do it the hardest way, never mind.

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i got two files

top_photo.kicad_mod

and

bot2_photo.kicad_mod

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Just out of interest, how did you import the files, and what version of KiCad?

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Application: kicad
Version: (2017-12-24 revision 570866557)-makepkg, release build

File—>>>Import Project->>>>Eagle Cad

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I’m not 100% certain. What type of file are the scans? You have been implying a “*.mod” file which is the KiCad file for a footprint; hence some of the confusion.

If the scan can be converted to a .dxf file, that can be imported into PcbNew, and I think it might be able to be imported onto the ECO layers. Under File / Import / DXF File.