X-ray board restoration and Altair 8800/Macintosh X-ray Was: Apple IIe X-Ray

Before you read the text below, am willing to help anyone out who has equipment they want to reproduce (as far as getting the x-ray goes)...but its not a fast and easy method. It isn't easy, and I would advise against it. If you have 4 layer product, TWO boards and are willing to throw one away, then it is cheap and easy. I wouldn't have ever came out with www.altairkit.com without the guys at www.mhtest.com. They will take your 2-3-4-etc layer board and generate production ready cad drawings. A 2 layer board does not need to be destroyed, however a 4 layer board will need to be "planed" so that they can scan the inner layers. Most 4 layer boards just have a VCC and GND power planes, so the top and bottom are the signals. I still wouldn't use the x-ray to generate the cad artwork. Been there... ; ) Here are two shots of a Mac 512k motherboard. You can see the difference. This is what a 4 layer board CAN look like. You can see the holes in the middle layers where the through hole devices go through. http://media.diywelder.com/images3/090605-512kRAM.jpg http://media.diywelder.com/images3/090605-512kProcessor.jpg Take a look at my website at www.altairkit.com and read the story link. I first tried to duplicate the boards with x-ray, and even developed a way to do it (it just takes a lot of time). The method involves scanning the back of the board as an image and combining it with the x-ray. The grey traces will be on the top and the orange ones will be on the bottom. X-ray of Altair 8800 CPU board: http://www.stockly.com/images2/060119-Altair_8800_CPU_BD_Rev0-XRAY.jpg The photo scan of the Altair 8800 CPU board: http://www.stockly.com/images2/060119-Altair_8800_CPU_BD_Rev0_Back-Flipped-… The x-ray / photo composite: http://www.stockly.com/images2/060119-Altair_8800_CPU_BD_Rev0-Composite.jpg Grant