That's exactly what I was thinking of initially, however, first you may have
a photo from the solder stop layer as well, and then you will not have a
schematics so you can't test the device what's going on if some adjustments
needed during it gets alive (varcaps, potmeters etc, where and what to
measure etc). Also mentioned here by Bob that some components could have
different sensitiveness for noise nowadays other than was it before so that
may need some changes in the circuit or at least different values needed for
some of the components.

I would say if the purpose of the board is well known, what should it do,
what are the expectations/limitations etc maybe better to design a
replacement board with the very same dimensions and interface and forget the
old one completely.

Tamas


On 06/11/06, Alan B. Pearce <A.B.Pearce@rl.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> >how many layer is the board? if its only a double sided board then i
> >presume you could depopulate it, scan it and trace the scans.
>
> Not quite, after depopulating it, you polish it so the copper is bright,
> and
> get the board house to photograph it to make the master. Agree it is
> really
> only practical with a 2 layer PCB, but not impossible on a multilayer one
> -
> if you have some suitable milling machinery to skim the layers off.
>
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