Design of a Custom Embedded Replay Control Board for a Vintage Porsche

Many industries rely on decades old software and electronics to run machines that are essential for America’s industry. These companies operate on the sentiment of “if it’s broke, don’t fix it”. This works great until something breaks, then these same companies are faced with a tough decision. Either replace the old software and electronics with modern solutions or fix the original electronics. Both options have their challenges, the first costs much more in the short term and will require many man hours to design a new solution however the latter will require finding the original documentation or having trained individuals who are proficient in servicing the original system. As time goes by, the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) who produced the electronics and software discontinue these products making it harder and more expensive to fix and maintain these systems. This project explores the first option: modernizing and reverse engineering 40 year old electronics. This will involve detailed schematic review, testing of the original electronics, circuit design, printed circuit board (PCB) layout and manufacturing, embedded software development and finally testing of the final product to ensure it performs all of the functions of the original electronics and more. The final project will be a “plug and play” replacement for the original electronics.