We propose an interactive tool that enables reusing printed circuit boards (PCB) as prototyping materials to implement new circuits — this extends the utility of PCBs rather than discards them as e-waste. To enable this, our tool takes a user’s desired circuit schematic and analyzes its components and connections to find methods of creating the user’s circuit on discarded PCBs (e.g., e-waste, old prototypes). In our technical evaluation, we utilized our tool across a diverse set of PCBs and input circuits to characterize how often circuits could be implemented on a different board, implemented with minor interventions (trace-cutting or bodge-wiring), or implemented on a combination of multiple boards — demonstrating how our tool assists with exhaustive matching tasks that a user would not likely perform manually. We believe our tool offers: (1) a new approach to prototyping with electronics beyond the limitations of breadboards and (2) a new approach to reducing e-waste during electronics prototyping.
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3706598.3714095
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