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How hard is it to remake and improve a random component on any electronic device I own? eg the control panel on my microwave or my entire TV remote. Would I ne

How hard is it to remake and improve a random component on any electronic device I own? eg the control panel on my microwave or my entire TV remote. Would I need specific parts from the manufacturers? Would dissecting the existing component give enough detail for me to remake without the (I assume proprietary/hidden) schematics?

_benj 3y ago
Maybe a bit optimistic but I don’t think it’d be to hard. Most devices already use pretty standard components, a microwave for example would have “something” to switch the thing on and off. It might be a solid state relay or something like that. Maybe it has multiple, one to control the fan, light, motor to turn the things around, and the thing that emits the microwaves. But once you figure out what signal is needed to start those (a bit of intuition and a multimeter might suffice) you are off to the races! One you open a few house appliances it’s easy to see how they optimized for cost, so you seldom find fancy protocols or components unless they are absolutely necessary. In a toaster over for example, you might find a temperature sensor and it would likely take a bit of fever engineering to calibrate the temperature to the voltage output (I’m assuming that is a cheap analog sensor instead of something that spits a digital I2C signal for example). So yeah! It shouldn’t be too hard to hack your devices :-)
TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
uwave control panels are pretty simple - usually just some buttons, a display, maybe a rotary controller, and an embedded controller IC. But you really do not want to be experimenting with custom control unless you know exactly what you're doing. Aside from the risk of nuking food and/or accidentally bypassing the door switch and microwaving yourself/partner/kids/pets/etc, most uwaves have huge power capacitors near the controller board. An unplanned encounter with one of those can kill you. Here's a sample circuit. It's not super-complex. But there's a lot to go wrong, and it's really not a beginner project. https://www.electronicsforu.com/electronics-projects/microwave-oven-control-board-2 https://www.electronicsforu.com/electronics-projects/microwa... Remotes are basically the same with (usually) an IR transmitter, more buttons, and no dangerous power switching. It's not all that hard to clone one, but the hard part is making the tiny physical buttons and inventing a better UI. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7z4CU5mw9E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7z4CU5mw9E
jononor 3y ago
This is half reverse engineering (understanding the existing part), and half engineering. The reversing can be quite difficult for less common parts/designs, and is partly a different skillset. But for standardized interfaces like an IR TV remote it can be pretty easy.
crote 3y ago
A lot harder than building your own from scratch. When you are trying to improve an existing product, you first need to figure out what the existing part is doing. This is going to be incredibly difficult because you do not have access to the original documentation. Often it involves proprietary parts for which zero documentation is publicly available, and you are going to need quite expensive tooling to figure out what it is doing without those docs. In general I do not really think this is viable to a beginner for anything beyond completely trivial product. A microwave is a really bad idea due to the voltages and currents involved (you can easily end up killing yourself). A TV remote is probably doable, but mostly because you can do that without opening up the remote at all and just need to look at the (often standardized) IR signals coming out.

_benj 3y ago

Maybe a bit optimistic but I don’t think it’d be to hard. Most devices already use pretty standard components, a microwave for example would have “something” to switch the thing on and off. It might be a solid state relay or something like that. Maybe it has multiple, one to control the fan, light, motor to turn the things around, and the thing that emits the microwaves. But once you figure out what signal is needed to start those (a bit of intuition and a multimeter might suffice) you are off to the races! One you open a few house appliances it’s easy to see how they optimized for cost, so you seldom find fancy protocols or components unless they are absolutely necessary. In a toaster over for example, you might find a temperature sensor and it would likely take a bit of fever engineering to calibrate the temperature to the voltage output (I’m assuming that is a cheap analog sensor instead of something that spits a digital I2C signal for example). So yeah! It shouldn’t be too hard to hack your devices :-)

TheOtherHobbes 3y ago

uwave control panels are pretty simple - usually just some buttons, a display, maybe a rotary controller, and an embedded controller IC. But you really do not want to be experimenting with custom control unless you know exactly what you're doing. Aside from the risk of nuking food and/or accidentally bypassing the door switch and microwaving yourself/partner/kids/pets/etc, most uwaves have huge power capacitors near the controller board. An unplanned encounter with one of those can kill you. Here's a sample circuit. It's not super-complex. But there's a lot to go wrong, and it's really not a beginner project. https://www.electronicsforu.com/electronics-projects/microwave-oven-control-board-2 https://www.electronicsforu.com/electronics-projects/microwa... Remotes are basically the same with (usually) an IR transmitter, more buttons, and no dangerous power switching. It's not all that hard to clone one, but the hard part is making the tiny physical buttons and inventing a better UI. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7z4CU5mw9E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7z4CU5mw9E

jononor 3y ago

This is half reverse engineering (understanding the existing part), and half engineering. The reversing can be quite difficult for less common parts/designs, and is partly a different skillset. But for standardized interfaces like an IR TV remote it can be pretty easy.

crote 3y ago

A lot harder than building your own from scratch. When you are trying to improve an existing product, you first need to figure out what the existing part is doing. This is going to be incredibly difficult because you do not have access to the original documentation. Often it involves proprietary parts for which zero documentation is publicly available, and you are going to need quite expensive tooling to figure out what it is doing without those docs. In general I do not really think this is viable to a beginner for anything beyond completely trivial product. A microwave is a really bad idea due to the voltages and currents involved (you can easily end up killing yourself). A TV remote is probably doable, but mostly because you can do that without opening up the remote at all and just need to look at the (often standardized) IR signals coming out.