Author Topic: Curiosity Killing The Cat - Reverse Engineered Schematics  (Read 1384 times)

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Offline spsbTopic starter

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Curiosity Killing The Cat - Reverse Engineered Schematics
« on: April 03, 2022, 02:54:28 am »
This may of course be a very silly question with an obvious answer to some...

But I was curious in knowing about the legality of "publishing" (to a forum) a reversed engineered schematic of the raspberry pi 4?

I was surprised and also not surprised to discover that I couldn't get a detailed schematic of said pcb.  My reasons are motivated purely by curiosity and started when I ended up with 8 dead rpi4's from a previous job.  Started hoping the problem was related so some supporting component failure, I decided looking at doing a diagnosis and repair - despite the obvious bad cost versus outcome,  I was more interesting in the learning experience. Then I hit this wall...

So. Now I have 8 boards and some time to spare. I wondered if anyone has attempted to do what I am suggesting? And what legal traps one could find along this journey?

Any insight would be appreciated, Cheers.

 

Offline james_s

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Re: Curiosity Killing The Cat - Reverse Engineered Schematics
« Reply #1 on: April 03, 2022, 03:21:04 am »
It may depend on what country you're in, but here in the US it's legal to publish a reverse engineered schematic. When you reverse engineer something, you own the results of your work.
 
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Offline spsbTopic starter

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Re: Curiosity Killing The Cat - Reverse Engineered Schematics
« Reply #2 on: April 03, 2022, 03:34:22 am »
That is very interesting, then why is it so that I can not find any detailed schematics of the rpi4. I am sure there are many smart people in the US (or that rest of the world) that could do this far more quickly than I could, or is it that no one is bothered LOL
 

Offline james_s

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Re: Curiosity Killing The Cat - Reverse Engineered Schematics
« Reply #3 on: April 03, 2022, 03:58:57 am »
I have no idea, certainly I've never bothered. I've never had a reason to.
 

Offline amyk

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Re: Curiosity Killing The Cat - Reverse Engineered Schematics
« Reply #4 on: April 03, 2022, 04:15:25 am »
The RPi "community" has always been full of people who aren't bothered by Broadcom's infamous closedness, so it's probably the case that no one cared enough to do it.

Maybe you can make a working one out of the 8 dead ones?
 

Offline james_s

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Re: Curiosity Killing The Cat - Reverse Engineered Schematics
« Reply #5 on: April 03, 2022, 04:22:13 am »
I don't like Broadcom's closedness but I also have never needed a schematic for a RPi. I've never had one fail and I wouldn't bother trying to build one myself even if I could get the parts. It's little more than a breakout board for the SOC, I don't expect a schematic to be all that interesting so I've never had a reason to try to locate one. More often than not when I fix something I don't have a schematic for it, it's a rare luxury when there is one.
 

Offline sequoia

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Re: Curiosity Killing The Cat - Reverse Engineered Schematics
« Reply #6 on: April 03, 2022, 06:23:42 pm »
Interesting, I've only looked Pico schematics in the past...  Indeed looks like for Pi there seems to be only "reduced" schematics available:

https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/raspberry-pi.html

(is there something else "missing" from these than details on the Broadcom SoC?)

 


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