[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Seeeking help to reverse engineer a PCB
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       Ask HN: Seeeking help to reverse engineer a PCB
        
       We are a small manufacturing company currently developing our own
       self balancing wheelchair. We have been purchasing PCB gyro board
       for Chinese company to test the wheelchair. I requested they
       changed a number of parameters on the firmware to add additional
       safety measures to the project. They appear to be reluctant to do
       this work ... with no logical reason why, I presume they themselves
       do have access to its development.  I am looking for a company
       capable of reverse engineer the PCB we have been testing and gain
       access to the firmware and making some software revisions. Is this
       possible, are you interested in taking on this work. I welcome you
       thoughts.
        
       Author : Dlg001
       Score  : 7 points
       Date   : 2026-01-23 06:46 UTC (16 hours ago)
        
       | aappleby wrote:
       | They can't do the work because they copied the firmware from some
       | other company's product and don't actually know how it works.
       | 
       | That other company probably _also_ copied it from somewhere else,
       | etc.
        
         | leetbulb wrote:
         | Yeah. They, too, likely hired someone to reverse engineer it to
         | make their own modifications. Let's add another to the chain.
         | Surely the firmware could only become more "safe" with Lego
         | block hacks. That's the point, right, OP?
         | 
         | All things considered, it sounds like the "gyro board" module
         | is probably something that is OTS and already certified for use
         | in a healthcare product. Wonder what the legality is of
         | modifying such a thing in such a way?
         | 
         | As others have suggested, make your own or use a more
         | ubiquitous module from the open source community. Integration
         | wise, Claude can probably get you 80% of the way there.
        
       | 15155 wrote:
       | > I presume they themselves do have access to its development.
       | 
       | Bad presumption.
       | 
       | Just develop a new board with your own bespoke design and
       | firmware, possibly inspired by theirs. If you can't do this, you
       | shouldn't be in this business.
        
       | iancmceachern wrote:
       | We do this all day, would be very happy to help.
       | 
       | www.iancollmceachern.com
        
       | dghlsakjg wrote:
       | Which PCB gyro board?
       | 
       | When I think of "PCB gyro boards" it is typically a commodity
       | chip like the MPU-9250 packaged on a board with the necessary
       | filtering caps, etc, There is not any firmware to modify really,
       | all of the processing is done by a separate MCU that handles the
       | filtering and processing.
        
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       (page generated 2026-01-23 23:01 UTC)