What Is Reverse Engineering?

Manufacturers worldwide have produced countless products and components for more than a century. Continual technological advancements mean that only a tiny percentage remain relevant long after their original release. However, many old machine parts remain helpful today.

When a part malfunctions or fails altogether, reverse engineering potentially allows the assembly to be salvaged by replacing a single component, allowing the machine to remain intact and operational.

Reverse Engineering Defined

Reverse or back engineering is the process of deconstructing products to extract design information in order to recreate a part. This process involves working backward from the original design process with limited knowledge of the techniques and tools used to create the product. The challenge is to gain a working knowledge of the original design by disassembling the product one piece or layer at a time.

Many companies use reverse engineering when buying a replacement part from an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is no longer an option. It’s a common practice for software, mechanical, electrical and architectural structures.

Reverse Engineering Examples

Companies often reverse-engineer old electronic components, including discontinued printed circuit boards (PCBs) and connecting cards. The products in question frequently come from manufacturers that have since gone out of business or no longer manufacture the required part.

In some cases, reverse engineering is the only way to obtain the design of an original product. With some older products that have not been manufactured for 20 years or more, the original 2D drawings are no longer available. Often, there will be no way to contact the original manufacturer, as the company may no longer be in business.

Companies sometimes use reverse engineering to regain design data on their own long-discontinued products. For example, a small company that has been in business for more than 40 years may have manufactured numerous products before the days of computer-aided design and digital file storage.

Consequently, these older products may be based on long-lost paper blueprints. Through reverse engineering, companies can regain their lost designs and create archives of their product legacy. Even if the company still has its blueprints, it may want to convert the product definition to a digital format to simplify access and use. The business could use reverse engineering techniques to create this digital design file.

Auto restoration specialists occasionally use reverse engineering to recreate engine and auto body parts for older vehicles. The process can assist in rebuilding engines or recreating hard-to-find components, making classic cars drivable again. You can bring these vehicles back to life, making them fully functional without changing their system design.

Reverse engineering requires a series of steps to gather precise information on a product’s dimensions. Once characterized, the data can be stored in digital archives. Engineers often enhance the design with new developments and innovations. Sometimes, they replicate the original model exactly.

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Reverse Engineering Techniques and Tools

Manufacturers need various tools and techniques to successfully reverse engineer components with enough accuracy to make them useful. Some of these include:

• 3D scanning: This common and effective technology allows you to capture a component’s shape, size and surface features in digital form. From there, you can use software to proceed the data into a computer-aided design (CAD) model to machine the component accurately and precisely.
• CAD modeling: This process involves creating or modifying a 3D representation of an object. It allows you to design, simulate and test a reverse-engineered product to optimize its form, fit and function.
• Measurement tools: Measurement tools such as coordinate measuring machines (CMMs) assist in verifying and validating reverse-engineered products. They check the dimensions and identify errors or defects, allowing you to improve the design. These measurement systems are also useful for characterizing the products you want to reverse engineer, capturing product definition to enable redesign.
• Disassembly: In this technique, you dismantle a component to understand how it works and how to re-engineer it to meet OEM specifications.
• Reverse-engineering software: Hardware tools are only part of the overall reverse-engineering process. Purpose-built software helps you import, convert and analyze scan data to represent each component accurately.
• Testing and prototyping: Turning a digital model into a physical product and testing that product helps verify design assumptions, identify issues and make necessary improvements.

The Reverse Engineering Process

To reverse engineer a physical product, an organization often acquires an example and disassembles it to examine its internal mechanisms. This step allows engineers to uncover the product’s original design and construction information.

The process begins with analyzing the dimensions and attributes of the product, whether it be an aircraft, computer or piece of industrial machinery. During this analysis, you measure the widths, lengths and heights of the product’s key components, as these dimensions often relate to the product’s performance capacity.

Today, some engineers use 3D scanning technologies to take accurate measurements. These scanners give engineers accurate readings of the product’s specifications and automatically log this information into a database.  3D scanning technologies include CMMs, industrial computed tomography (CT) scanners, laser scanners and structured light digitizers.

After all the pertinent information has been gathered and recorded, you can use this data to create computer-aided design (CAD) drawings for subsequent analysis and development. CAD drawings are digital, two-dimensional, and three-dimensional representations of the products, which you can use to analyze the product’s design. These digital models help to unveil design intent and inform the creation of a reverse-engineered component.

Reverse engineering is often necessary in the development of computer parts due to the obsolescence of parts from prior years. For example, you might have one product with a unique innovation from two years earlier, but the manufacturer has since gone out of business. To link that innovation to a newer product for convenience and continuity’s sake, the engineering team will need to examine the obsolete product for its technological makeup.

Technicians begin the reverse-engineering process by examining and identifying the board’s components. Each board has resistors, capacitors, LEDs, a transistor, an inductor and various other features. The task here is to determine how the layout of these features gives the PCB its unique capabilities.

Before disassembly, the reverse engineering team will photograph the board up close from the front and back to create a record of its composition. Once the notes and images are collected, the engineers begin the process of deconstructing the board.

During disassembly, the team removes each part from the board one after another. They set the parts aside for safekeeping and organize them in the order in which they were removed. This way, they can reassemble the board again if necessary. If the objective is to replicate the design in question, engineers might test their ability to replicate the product by disassembling and reassembling an existing copy several times.

As the team sets aside removed components, they take value measurements of key parts. This step helps the team better understand the engineering that went into the original design and provides insight into how the board’s components work together to enable the PCB to function correctly.

After removing the various components from the old board, the team draws up a list of the materials and their order on the PCB. The team will also scan the board’s trace pattern so that it can be recreated later.

The reverse-engineering team may then use the pieces at hand and the information collected to assemble a new board. First, they lay out a new board and then install the components in the same order used for the original PCB. Once assembled, the new board is run through a series of tests to determine its functionality. The team will digitally document the results of these tests for future study.

What Is the Purpose of Reverse Engineering?

Reverse engineering provides manufacturers with information about the design of a product or component. When done successfully, reverse engineering gives you a virtual copy of the blueprint that went into the original design.

Reverse engineering is perhaps the most accurate way to recreate the designs for items that went out of production decades beforehand. In cases where the original blueprints are long since lost or destroyed, reverse engineering is perhaps the only way to bring such products back to life. If you can obtain a working model of an old product, you can trace the steps of its design and use those insights to construct a new model, repair a part or improve future products.

Below are some of the most common uses of reverse engineering.

1. Legacy Parts Replacement

Legacy parts replacement is one of the most common reverse applications. It involves examining and reproducing components of larger machines to keep them in operation. For example, a factory might have a large engine compartment that keeps the entire conveyor system running during each day’s work shift. On occasion, one of the machine parts will wear out and need to be replaced. If the machine is old, certain parts might no longer be in production, either because the OEM no longer makes the part or because it is out of business.

While the factory could invest heavily in a new conveyor system, retaining the same equipment and replacing the faulty part is preferable. With reverse engineering, you can use a 3D scanner to replicate the design of the defective part digitally. A new copy of the component can then be created and installed.

2. Parts Service or Repair

If a legacy part or a component the OEM no longer supports needs repair or service, it’s useful to understand how the product works. This knowledge can help complete the repair accurately and efficiently. If no design documents are available, a company may use reverse engineering to create them.

You can then use this information to inform how you repair or service the part. The data you gain from reverse engineering can help you determine which components you need to replace to fix a given problem. It can also inform your repair process by helping you better understand how best to access, remove and replace a certain part.

3. Failure Analysis

Reverse engineering techniques can be invaluable in failure analysis. If a machine fails, you may need to take it apart or examine design files to determine why. You can use this information to fix or improve the product, maintaining or enhancing its functionality. Your examination of the product can reveal damaged parts or faulty designs. Analysis of digital design files created through reverse engineering can reveal flaws and inform your plan for repairing the component.

4. Parts Improvement

Reverse engineering is also used for parts improvement. You might need to alter a component after conducting a failure analysis, or a particular might just be due for an upgrade. If no replacement or alternative part is available on the market, you could have the part reverse-engineered to create a copy of the original design. From there, you could modify the design for improved performance.

If a machine requires stronger joints or weld reinforcements, the faulty parts will be examined for their measurements and redesigned with increased thickness or stronger metals. Through reverse engineering, you can determine which dimensions must be maintained and which aspects you can change. If you could combine two or more parts into a single, more functional component, reverse engineering could reveal that fact.

5. Diagnostics and Problem-Solving

Reverse engineering can also be used for diagnostics and problem-solving in a sequence of industrial processes. In a factory setting, the flow of operations can sometimes slow due to a faulty or underperforming function. When a manufacturing system consists of numerous machines and components, it can be difficult to pinpoint the source of the problem. Through reverse engineering, you can determine how everything works as one and use that knowledge to identify where things can and do go wrong.

Common Uses of Reverse Engineering

Reverse engineering has many uses in today’s manufacturing climate. It’s essential across industries and applications, allowing organizations to get the most out of every machine item. Some common reverse engineering uses include:

• Software: Reverse engineering can be instrumental in disassembling software or adapting programs from one microprocessor to another. It may also take the form of lost source code reconstruction — studying how a program performs tasks and improving upon that performance.
• Computer hardware: When the original parts for legacy equipment are no longer available, reverse engineering is often used to create replacement hardware. The same process applies to items like PCBs and integrated circuits.
• Medical devices: Components in medical devices may also require reverse engineering to power legacy or specialized equipment. It’s also essential in pharmaceutical manufacturing, ensuring machines work with the required accuracy and precision.
• Aerospace: The aerospace industry relies on highly complex parts when manufacturing aircraft and related equipment. Reverse engineering ensures each part is manufactured to the required tight tolerances, no matter how complex the geometries are.

Contributions to the Sustainability of Manufacturing Systems

Reverse engineering can combat obsolescence issues and help engineers understand the reasons behind product failure. It also represents a sustainable manufacturing process in many respects. It can be used to assess manufacturing practices, highlighting improvements you can make to maintain efficiency and reduce waste.

This practice is also essential in analyzing products and services to make design improvements that sustain their useful life. Reverse engineering allows us to improve existing designs, incorporating sustainability and longevity into the next generation of products and components.

Why Trust Astro Machine Works?

Astro Machine Works has offered custom machinery and precision parts since 1984. We have the capabilities to produce replacement parts and components with fast turnaround times and a focus on cost-effectiveness. We can even support the reverse engineering of entire machines, allowing you to replace parts and upgrade and automate your workflows. The machines and parts we’ve built can be found around the globe in some of the world’s most notable companies.

Reverse Engineering/Back Engineering From Astro Machine Works

As technology continues to develop and advance, reverse engineering is necessary for the continuity of today’s existing manufacturing systems. Without reverse engineering, companies would be forced to replace entire machines regularly, investing vast sums of money in the process.

With reverse engineering, you can retain the products that work and recreate parts that fail, regardless of the product’s age and whether or not the original maker is still in business. At Astro Machine Works, we do reverse engineering for organizations in various sectors, including the aerospace, electronics, and medical industries. Contact us today to learn more about our services.

Categories: Engineering