LACED – µPrecision PCB Delayering for Under €200

[lawrence]

Hey folks,

I’ve developed a method called LACED — Laser-Assisted Controlled Etching and Delayering — designed to reverse engineer multilayer PCBs with high precision and low cost.

Instead of sanding by hand (slow, imprecise, and risky), LACED uses a <5W UV laser and simple chemicals to ablate PCB layers with ~10μm accuracy.

You can expose internal traces cleanly, layer by layer — ideal for documentation, analysis, or replication.

• Sub-€200 setup
• Open source
• Way more precise than manual sanding

GitHub: https://github.com/LawrenceBrode/LACED

Let me know what you think — happy to see it evolve with community input!

– Lorentio

 

[Sdouyoulink]

That's great.

 

[Y2K]

Amazing work! Do you think this could be used for assistance in decapping ICs? Regardless this would be very helpful for documentation work & for some projects here!

 

[lawrence]

Amazing work! Do you think this could be used for assistance in decapping ICs? Regardless this would be very helpful for documentation work & for some projects here!

Hi Y2K, thanks for the feedback.

Regarding IC decapping (something I’m really interested in, as I’ve studied computer architecture and even built CPUs using logic gates), I tried using a 5-watt laser. However, I ran into a physical issue related to the vitrification of the epoxy encapsulating the ICs. It turned white and glassy — fragile, yet somehow also resistant to the laser itself.

After just a few passes, it becomes nearly impossible to proceed, at least with such low power.

It would be very interesting to try with a galvo laser, like the ones you see in some YouTube videos — I’m sure that would work much better.