Copy an existing, populated, PCB board?

[Chris Wilson]

I have a small and simple plug in PCB board from a power supply on its way to me, inside a partially working PSU. It is the same board that is missing altogether from a sister none working supply I have, that gives a hefty 60 volts, 50 amps variable output that I want to fix. I could de solder and remove all the components off the board I am getting, and thought I could maybe take some sort of "brass rubbing" tracing of the tracks, but is there a better way? I would like to try and etch a board myself but have never tried anything more than very basic stuff of my own design, with the tracks blanked of with cut vinyl tape, or marker pen. Thanks.

[SeanB]

Good digital camera and a pair of rulers on the board edges. Photograph from above, with an even light to illuminate the board, and use a graphics program to convert to a greyscale and posterise the image to a black and white image, with the traces in black and the board in white. Scale to the right size and print as an image and use a photosensitive board, or send to a PCB house to do. Check the tracks match on a test printout, and when correct you can get the board made and drill it yourself.

[grumpydoc]

Single or double sided.

I've been thinking of the same for a couple of PCBs - and pretty much planning on using the process outlined by SeanB. It possibly helps that I have a copy of photoshop to tweak the image.

[Chris Wilson]

Single sided and quite uncomplicated. Will give it a shot when it arrives, haven't played with photo sensitive boards yet, wouldn't mind having a go with that too though! Thanks again Sean, great info, and appreciated.

[krivx]

I have used a flatbed scanner to scan  PCBs in the past. It works much better than a digital camera, the level of light across the board is very even and there is very little distortion. If you put a reference object (say, a ruler) on the scanner at the same time it makes rescaling the image for correct dimensions pretty straightforward.

[AndyC_772]

It possibly helps that I have a copy of photoshop to tweak the image.

Even if you don't, there's always GIMP.

http://www.gimp.org/

[Bored@Work]

but is there a better way?

Hire a dodgy "PCB cloning", "PCB reverse engineering" company from China.