Boosted remote

Boosted Remote Reverse-Engineering Starter

This repo contains a first-pass reverse-engineered hardware recreation of the Boosted Boards thumbwheel remote:

• a Blender-generated enclosure
• a KiCad schematic
• a KiCad PCB
• documented assumptions tying the mechanical and electrical work back to source material

This is not a firmware-complete clone. The hardware is designed to match the known control architecture and packaging constraints while using currently accessible parts and a reproducible scripted workflow.

Source Anchors

• Boosted USA product page for the later thumbwheel remote exterior reference:
  • https://boostedusa.com/products/boosted-remote
• Beam Break BLE reverse-engineering notes confirming later remote BLE behavior and pairing model:
  • https://beambreak.org/articles/remote_ble_ids/
• XR General Hospital replacement PCBA product confirming that a retrofit board in the original enclosure is practical:
  • https://www.xrgeneralhospital.com/beta/p/remote-controller-pcba

Generated Assets

• Active enclosure blend: outputs/blender/boosted_remote_enclosure.blend
• Active PCB review blend: outputs/blender/boosted_remote_pcb_all_layers.blend
• Build123d CAD package: mechanical/cad/
• Build123d generator CLI: mechanical/scripts/build_enclosure.py
• Proxy-section extractor: mechanical/scripts/analyze_proxy_glb.py
• KiCad project: electrical/kicad/boosted_remote.kicad_pro
• Live board and schematic: electrical/kicad/boosted_remote.kicad_pcb, electrical/kicad/boosted_remote.kicad_sch
• Routing packet script: electrical/scripts/route_packets.py
• Netclass configurator: electrical/scripts/configure_netclasses.py
• Blender export path: electrical/scripts/export_kicad_to_blender.py
• Shared parameters: config/remote_params.json
• Reverse-engineering notes: docs/reverse_engineering_notes.md
• Build123d pipeline notes: docs/build123d_enclosure.md
• Repo navigation map: docs/repo_map.md

Where To Work Now

• Mechanical source of truth: mechanical/cad/
• Generated Blender outputs: outputs/blender/
• Mechanical build entry point: mechanical/scripts/build_enclosure.py
• Shared parameter contract: config/remote_params.json
• Active KiCad project: electrical/kicad/boosted_remote.kicad_pro
• Active board and schematic: electrical/kicad/boosted_remote.kicad_pcb, electrical/kicad/boosted_remote.kicad_sch
• Electrical utilities and routing helpers: electrical/scripts/
• Mechanical utilities: mechanical/scripts/
• Historical electrical scripts: history/electrical/scripts/
• Historical mechanical scripts and studies: history/mechanical/
• Historical utilities: history/utilities/

Repo Shape

• electrical/kicad/: live KiCad project only
• electrical/scripts/: active live-board utilities only
• mechanical/cad/: code-first enclosure source of truth
• mechanical/scripts/: active enclosure utilities only
• mechanical/references/: supporting 2D outline reference assets used by the CAD pipeline
• outputs/: generated Blender scenes, renders, and scratch outputs
• history/electrical/: older routing and migration helpers
• history/mechanical/: non-canonical lineage, experiments, displaced scenes, and older scripts
• history/utilities/: historical support scripts and geometry probes
• config/: shared project configuration and parameter contracts
• docs/: workflow notes plus docs/repo_map.md for a quick navigation guide

Current Scope

• Boosted-style ergonomic shell with split enclosure
• thumbwheel opening and internal hall sensor location
• mini-USB charge-port cutout for external visual fidelity
• 1S LiPo power, charger, LDO, BLE MCU, LEDs, buzzer, deadman trigger, programming header
• first-pass PCB shaped to the enclosure cavity
• first-pass build123d enclosure generation for STEP/STL prototype outputs

Verification Status

• Schematic ERC is down to warnings only on the generated custom-library setup.
• The promoted live PCB checkpoint is:
  • electrical/kicad/boosted_remote.kicad_pcb
  • 3 DRC warnings, all silkscreen-only
  • 25 unconnected items remaining
• The live board now includes validated packetized routing improvements over the original generator baseline.
  • Clean promoted packets so far: upper SW1 -> U4 ground stitch and PWR_BTN escape/routing packet
• Experimental routing passes are only promoted when they reduce the open count without introducing blocker DRC categories.

Known Gaps

• No firmware is included
• Dimensions are inferred and should be validated against a physical remote before fabrication
• The BLE protocol implementation required to pair with an original board is outside this repo
• The trigger and thumbwheel mechanism are mechanically approximated, not metrology-matched