Reverse Engineering PCB Expertise

As many assets on oil and gas rigs are ageing, there is a need for retrofitting parts of the system. ABL took on the challenge of recreating PCBs to the exact specifications drawn up for an oil rig over 30 years ago using their reverse engineering PCB expertise.

In total, 17 different types of replacement Printed Circuit Boards needed reverse engineering to replace the rack-mounted legacy boards in the control units regulating valves, sprinklers, detectors and other systems that form part of the emergency protection on the oil rig. Each individual board needed between 40 and 50 hours of ‘reverse engineering’ from the schematic drawings and a selection of old boards.

The biggest challenge for ABL Circuits was to unravel the original design drawings; large sheets of paper that had been produced, not all of which were an exact match to the PCB samples. Yet the designs and components needed to match the 1980’s originals exactly.