Retracing the PCBs
Published: February 3, 2026
It feels like I'm starting all over again but it's for the best. Before last week, all I had access to were low resolution photos of the circuit boards and the circuit diagram of the synth.
Last week, I got an email from a fellow 800DV enthusiast who offered to photograph and scan all the PCBs. The photos I have now are so much better and allow me to discard all the previous guesswork and start fresh.
I won't throw everything away since I already have a large part of the schematics in KiCad. The new photos allow me to start laying down all the tracks much more accurately and much closer to the original. The retraced versions of the boards can also be used to manually etch the boards without using KiCad at all.
Still, I think implementing all the boards in KiCad is a good idea. I can make sure that the board matches the schematic and I get an exact bill of materials that I can order to build the synth.
You'll find the finished artworks here: PCB Artwork