9 Jan
2015
9 Jan
'15
6:06 a.m.
I appreciate all the input from folks. With 3600
though holes and at
least 4 layers, I'm afraid I will make mistakes using any manual method
like ohm tracing without a check or balance. With so many permutations
and little personal knowledge about the WE chipset, I'm sure I will miss
an occasional trace that shoots to the other side of the board. I'm also
worried that I might generate a false positive keeping most of the
components wired. Something akin to body diodes (yes I know this isn't
CMOS). Here is a wiki photo of the board for reference:
It would actually worry me more if a computer was tracing the connections
(as you suggest) rather than a person. A clueful person will spot obvious
errors, like outputs linked together, lines with nothing driving them, circuits
that could never be enabled, etc. I suspect a computer could be got to
flag the more obvious ones, but not all. And you are much more likely
to spot errors as you go than by looking over the diagrams afterwards.
I mentioned using a good continuity tracer that is not fooled by diodes. This
will handle any parasitic junctions in ICs, etc. If you get to know the instrument
you will not have problems from false positives.
-tony