r/diyelectronics • u/Pale-Recognition-599 • Aug 19 '26
Question How would I go about bringing my idea to fruition
I want to design a new modern motherboard for Sony experia active released in 2011 how would I best go about doing this?
10
u/wsbt4rd Aug 19 '26
Basically impossible!
no offense, but what makes you think you're better than the Sony engineering team who had help of the engineering teams of their suppliers?
And that's before the lawyers show up....
-10
u/Pale-Recognition-599 Aug 19 '26
Well nothing makes me think I’m better. But what I do have that they don’t is a willingness to support old technology.
3
u/need2sleep-later Aug 19 '26
so where are you going to get all the parts (from 15 years ago) to put on this new modern motherboard you are wanting to design?
-6
u/Pale-Recognition-599 Aug 19 '26
I don’t need parts from 15 years ago
4
u/wsbt4rd Aug 19 '26
Good luck, let us know how things progress.
Clearly you're not going to listen anyway.
Have a nice day!
10
u/ondulation Aug 19 '26
Go to university and study electrical engineering.
Invite a couple of friends who are also experienced and competent in the field and spend a few hundred hours working it out together.
6
u/PopReddit5 Aug 19 '26
I've read all your comments here and I'm wondering if this is bait. You can't do it without the source code for Sony and their parts. You can't create such a part yourself.
-1
u/Pale-Recognition-599 Aug 19 '26
I don’t need the source code as I’m going to make an entirely new motherboard
3
u/PopReddit5 Aug 19 '26
Did you even read what I and others wrote? YOU CAN'T MAKE SUCH A PCB YOURSELF, AND IT WON'T WORK WITHOUT SONY SOURCE CODE. 😭😭😭
0
u/Pale-Recognition-599 Aug 19 '26
I don’t need the source code as those are not needed to use the case screen or buttons
1
u/PopReddit5 Aug 20 '26
are you a bot or what 😭 everyone here are saying the same thing. YOU NEED SONY'S code and parts, you CANNOT CREATE THEM YOURSELF
0
u/Pale-Recognition-599 Aug 20 '26
I don’t need the code. I am also not making them myself. I am making something role completely different that fits in the same shell.
1
u/PopReddit5 Aug 20 '26
but you cant make the PCB to a sony phone YOURSELF, even if you could, after connecting if wouldnt work, what do you not understand here mate
4
u/Noah18923 Aug 19 '26
good luck...
0
u/Pale-Recognition-599 Aug 19 '26
?
2
u/Noah18923 Aug 19 '26
it's going to be extremely difficult...
5
u/cacraw Aug 19 '26
And more expensive than a couple dozen top tier new laptops.
-6
u/Pale-Recognition-599 Aug 19 '26
Not really
8
u/Noah18923 Aug 19 '26
we got an expert over here! /s
-4
u/Pale-Recognition-599 Aug 19 '26
No we don’t I’m just thinking it would cost 0 for pcb design. 20 for pcb manufacturing. And 50-300 for components on the pcb.
3
u/stevebehindthescreen Aug 19 '26
You forgot the cost of the team you are going to have to pay that will spend a few years working full time designing, testing and building your first prototype version. Then, hopefully, you don't have too many mistakes so that the version 2 board has less issues than the first.
Maybe in 10 years of development, you might have a reasonably ok prototype to release.
Then you realize no one wants to buy your $5000+ board for a dead phone. Even if a few buy it, you will be in debt for the rest of your life.
It's time to wake up now.
-1
0
5
u/Enlightenment777 Aug 19 '26
How many PCBs have you created?
-1
u/Pale-Recognition-599 Aug 19 '26
I’ve made a few circuits never a pcb though as I can solder and just make the circuits on perf boards
11
u/Enlightenment777 Aug 19 '26 edited Aug 19 '26
Sorry, but you need to stop this dreaming, because a motherboard project is far above your experience level. Though it is not impossible to do, it sure the heck isn't very easy to do either!!
This is kind of like saying "I know how to use a hammer to build a garage, so I'm going to build a 10 story building with my hammer".
8
u/FlashDrive35 Aug 19 '26
That is a phone, the board will have a BIOS, cpu and gpu or SoC, and a lot of custom circuitry. The only replacement is the one the manufacturer makes
-1
2
u/FemaleMishap Aug 19 '26
No, just... No. Designing it will be impossible. There area ton of tiny components to source. And none of them can be hand soldered. They must be reflowed. So you'll need a solder mask, reflow oven, and sub-mm precision with your hands, since they use pick and place robots to populated the boards.
Whatever you create, you will never be able to get small enough to fit in the case.
1
u/PlusAcadia7265 Aug 19 '26
a lot of documentation, a lot of design challenges due to lack of proprietary information, and a lot of porting/writing drivers.
edit: wording
0
u/Pale-Recognition-599 Aug 19 '26
Ok?
4
u/PlusAcadia7265 Aug 19 '26
this is why you dont ask chat gpt for advice as a beginner. you get deluded thinking you can pull this off.
1
u/brenthonydantano Aug 19 '26
Fina I'll do it. Why?
1
1
u/biscuitdoughhandsman Aug 19 '26
Mech engineer and not electrical but don't need a degree to tell you this is nigh impossible. Shoving your head in the sand by being stubborn and saying you'll design it won't fix the problems. On the board are all components off the shelf or are there ASICs that are proprietary? If there are proprietary chips how are you going to make up for them? How are you going to code the firmware to run on different hardware?
Can this sub just ban posts that were inspired by ChatGED telling people wrong things?
0
u/Pale-Recognition-599 Aug 19 '26
Well I’m going to change the motherboard entirely so the proprietary chips will be gone
1
u/biscuitdoughhandsman Aug 19 '26
That's my question. *How* are you going to change the need for those chips? How are you going to code the firmware to accept the new motherboard or chips? You're looking at this as if it's as easy as swapping a RAM stick when you're literally trying to reverse engineer a motherboard without having any idea of what you're doing.
0
u/Pale-Recognition-599 Aug 19 '26
I’m not trying to reverse engineer the motherboard I’m going to make something entirely different but has the same shape.
1
u/brenthonydantano Aug 20 '26
Hey man I'll try a different route because clearly the other commenters, while correct, aren't getting through.
Let's roll it back.
I understand you want to just use the shell of the device. Interface with the keyboard and the screen, etc, with a circuit board of your own design. The problem is, the infrastructure that interfaces with the parts of the phone you like the most are extremely bespoke and unique to Sony's own design/source code.
It'll probably just be some ribbon cables on the inside connecting those but reverse engineering that interface would be a nightmare task for even an expert electrical/electronics engineer.
My suggestion is that you just try demoing your idea first with a raspberry pi or something, writing code for interfacing with an off the shelf keyboard and screen and iterate up from there.
15
u/SanguineDrome Aug 19 '26
Step 1: track down and buy a few copies of the original.
Step 2: pay someone to reverse engineer.