Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

You’re right, but I don’t want to solder 2k wires to things. Last time I “professionally” reverse engineered a board we sent it out to get a CT scan of it, and got delivered a self executing program which contained a point cloud of data and an interface to extract surfaces, adjust the histogram (to make features visible) etc.

I’d take a handful of automated probes in a 3D printer chassis, and some vision/registration/classical computer vision algorithms.

This type of thing already exists but I’d rather have an open source one.



> This type of thing already exists but I’d rather have an open source one

Is it possible to make an open-source X-ray machine to do this kind of CT scan?

It really seems like it ought to be, but I don't know enough about the source and the CCD detectors to think about how to assemble it.


Well, step one would be to reverse-engineer an existing CT scanner. But to do that, you'd need a CT scan of the boards in the CT scanner...


Not really.

The big question is how to get an X-ray source with enough energy to penetrate metals and a detector with enough resolution.

Everything else can be cheap.


Can't find it at the moment, but someone did in fact create a passable homebrew CT scanner based on a small Faxitron medical-specimen X-ray machine of the sort that can be commonly found on eBay.

Edit: found it ( http://www.rtftechnologies.org/physics/faxitron-DX50-CT-scan... )

These machines are good for up to 8-10 layers of 1-oz copper.


I mean, we buy them and start learning?

Famous last words: how hard could it be?


The Programmers’ Credo: we do these things not because they are easy, but because we thought they were going to be easy. :)




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: