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How to take photos of circuit boards

How to take photos of circuit boards

KrisBlueNZ

Sadly passed away in 2015
Nov 28, 2011
8,393
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Nov 28, 2011
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8,393
KrisBlueNZ submitted a new resource:

How to take photos of circuit boards - Hints and tips on how to take optimal photos of your circuit boards

If you ask for help with a faulty circuit board, contributors will often ask you for photos.

This is important early in the thread, so we all know what we're dealing with. In almost all cases, photos will help. We may also see something in the photo that points to a specific fault.

Here are some guidelines for taking photos of circuit boards.

1. FOR YOUR SAFETY, if the board has any large electrolytic capacitors (marked "LDE" on the picture below), DISCHARGE THEM BEFORE YOU TOUCH THE BOARD....

Read more about this resource...
 
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FuZZ1L0G1C

Mar 25, 2014
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Mar 25, 2014
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Good, helpful post re circuit board photography. To append to this post: I created a jig with dimmer-controlled, switchable U/B white LEDS, which can uniformly light shadowed areas between components, (plywood, wood-glue, fiber glass epoxy resin to strengthen structure). Base has 4 long-bolt full-threaded "legs" screwed through 8mm nuts to adjust height, apex of wooden pyramid frame has felt-lined "bed" with rectangular hole to suit cell-phone/digicam. 3200x2200 pixel res (300DPI) gives a fairly sharp JPEG. As for the PCB tracks, photography works reasonably, but for greater accuracy, (eg duplicating a PCB) I prefer scanning on a flatbed at high res (anything from 600-4800 DPI), increasing contrast, then photo-editing with "line" and "paint-fill" tools to get an exact replica of the board tracks. (Without reflective solder flares or copper-side components obscuring track). Takes time, but satisfying result. Then Pixels/in gives you exact DPI to use for identical print size. Or if printer has preset fixed DPI then DPI*in gives size of required pixel-distance (of board).
 

RedBall

Oct 26, 2017
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Oct 26, 2017
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I was thinking of making "rails" over the circuit board to make a set of photos and then merge them to one big photo using photoshop. Rails is needed to move camera on them to make photos on the constant angle and distance. And because my hands shakes while rails don't.
 
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