BoardMapper

A free, browser-based PCB reverse engineering workbench.

Map unknown ICs, document pin functions, draw inter-chip connections, and overlay everything on a photo of the actual board. No accounts, no backend, no cost — everything runs in your browser.

Try it here -> https://mch-byte.github.io/Boardmapper/

Features

Chip Manager

• Add custom chips or import from a library of thousands of known ICs (sourced from KiCad)
• Visual pin diagrams for DIP, SOIC, SOT23, and QFP packages
• Name pins, assign types, track connections, and add notes
• Export pin mappings as JSON

Board View (coming soon)

• Import a PCB photo as background
• Drag chips onto the board and position them over real ICs
• Draw color-coded connections between pins (I2C, SPI, UART, etc.)
• Freehand annotation layer
• Export board map as PNG/SVG

Chip Library

• Thousands of ICs auto-imported from KiCad symbol libraries
• On-demand loading — only fetches chip data when you import it
• Updated monthly via GitHub Actions
• Community contributions welcome via PRs

Getting Started

git clone https://github.com/mch-byt/boardmapper.git
cd boardmapper
npm install
npm run dev

Open http://localhost:5173/boardmapper/ in your browser.

Building for Production

npm run build

Output is in dist/ — deploy to GitHub Pages, Netlify, Vercel, or any static host.

Updating the Chip Library

The chip library is automatically updated monthly via GitHub Actions. To update manually:

# Clone KiCad symbol libraries
git clone --depth 1 https://gitlab.com/kicad/libraries/kicad-symbols.git /tmp/kicad-symbols

# Run the import script
npm run import-kicad -- /tmp/kicad-symbols public/chips

# Commit the updated chips
git add public/chips/
git commit -m "Update chip library"

Tech Stack

• React 18 + Vite — fast dev, static build
• Konva.js — interactive canvas for Board View
• Zustand — lightweight state management
• Tailwind CSS — styling
• GitHub Pages — free hosting

Contributing

Contributions welcome! Some ideas:

• Add chips to the built-in library
• Improve the KiCad parser
• Build out the Board View canvas
• Add new package types
• Bug fixes and UI improvements

License

MIT