Dumb realization

[Alan W]

Everyone may already be doing this, but it didn’t occur to me until I had an Octarock board almost completely populated—covering the parts call outs that are printed on the pcb—“damn, why didn’t I take a picture of the bare board, so I’d have a reference for possible trouble shooting or modding?” It seems like the number of new boards being released is rapidly outpacing @Robert ’s ability to fully document them, or maybe that I’m being more drawn to very recent releases. In any case, for pcbs that don’t have published docs, or at least a schematic to cross reference with the published board images (that label parts as their purpose in the circuit, rather than their specifics), taking a close up of the bare board will be a new SOP for me.

 

[Erik S]

Good idea!

 

[jimilee]

J

Everyone may already be doing this, but it didn’t occur to me until I had an Octarock board almost completely populated—covering the parts call outs that are printed on the pcb—“damn, why didn’t I take a picture of the bare board, so I’d have a reference for possible trouble shooting or modding?” It seems like the number of new boards being released is rapidly outpacing @Robert ’s ability to fully document them, or maybe that I’m being more drawn to very recent releases. In any case, for pcbs that don’t have published docs, or at least a schematic to cross reference with the published board images (that label parts as their purpose in the circuit, rather than their specifics), taking a close up of the bare board will be a new SOP for me.

I always remember this after the board is populated and there’s an issue. Just ask for a schematic, the numbers are in the web page for the board.