W2R Schematics User Guide

01What W2R Schematics is

W2R Schematics is a Windows desktop application for board-level repair of mobile phones and consumer electronics. It is the reference tool you keep open on the bench next to the microscope.

When a phone comes in dead, you need three things before you touch the board with a probe: the schematic that tells you how the circuit is supposed to work, the boardview that tells you where on the physical PCB each component and test point actually sits, and — ideally — a known repair procedure from someone who has already fixed this exact fault on this exact model.

W2R Schematics puts all three in one window, connected to a cloud library of board files that you browse and open directly. You do not hunt through folders of leaked PDFs on a hard drive. You sign in, find the model, and open it.

The four things it does:

• A cloud library of board documentation. Schematics, boardviews and hardware-solution guides, organised by manufacturer and model, streamed to you on demand.
• Three specialised viewers. One for schematics, one for physical boardviews, one for annotated repair guides — each built for its job rather than a generic document reader.
• Cross-linking between them. Double-click a net name in the schematic and it lights up on the physical board. This is the feature that saves the most time, and it is covered in §18.
• A community repair-solutions layer. Repair procedures pinned to the specific nets and components they concern, published by W2R and by other technicians — and you can publish your own (§20, §21).

02The core idea: three views of one board

Everything in W2R Schematics follows from one idea. A single phone board is described by three different kinds of document, and they are far more useful when they talk to each other.

The schematic and the boardview open side by side and become linked. When a pair is linked, a search in one drives the other:

That single gesture replaces the slowest part of the job — carrying a net name from the schematic in your head, then scanning the board to find where it physically lands.

03Who it's for

W2R Schematics is built for repair technicians and repair shops doing component-level work: micro-soldering, chip-level fault finding, tracing shorts, diagnosing no-power and no-charge faults, and reworking BGA packages.

It is a reference and diagnosis tool, not a design tool. You cannot draw a schematic or lay out a PCB with it. It reads board documentation, it does not author it.

Access is by licensed subscription. Your account carries a plan with an expiry date, and is tied to the computer you activate it on — see §9.

04What are the system requirements?

Minimum

Recommended

Microsoft Edge WebView2 Runtime is required and is installed automatically if it is missing.

05How do I install W2R Schematics?

1. Run the installer. Administrator rights are required.
2. Follow the on-screen steps. You can opt in to a desktop icon.
3. The installer bundles the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable and the WebView2 Runtime, and installs them if your machine does not already have them.
4. Launch from the Start Menu.

Your antivirus may also need to be told to allow the application, and your firewall must permit network access for the library and updates to work.

06Signing in

W2R Schematics opens on a sign-in window and stays there until you are through it. There is no offline or guest mode — the library lives on the server and each file is streamed as you open it.

1 Username or email

Either works. Press Enter to sign in without reaching for the mouse.

2 Password

The eye at the right of the field reveals what you typed.

3 Remember me

Fills this form again next time. It does not sign you in.

4 Auto Login

Goes further: skips this window entirely on the next launch. You can turn it off again from the profile card once you are inside (§26). Leave it off on a shared computer.

5 Forgot password?

Resets it by emailed code — see §8.

6 Sign In

Stays grey until both fields have something in them.

7 Sign in with Google

Opens your normal browser for Google's consent screen and returns you here. The Google account must already be registered with W2R.

8 Register

Creates an account without leaving the app — §7.

9 HD Reset

Releases the licence from the PC that currently holds it — §9.

07Creating an account

Register swaps the window over to sign-up, and the panel changes sides — the form is now on the right. It runs in two steps: prove the address is yours, then build the account on it. Nothing is created until the last step succeeds.

1 Step 1 of 2 · Verify your email

The step label tracks where you are and changes as you go.

2 Email address

The code goes here, so it must be an address you can read.

3 Send OTP

Grey until the address looks valid.

4 Sign up with Google

Skips the code step; you still choose a username and password afterwards.

5 Back to Sign In

Abandons the sign-up. Nothing has been created at this point.

2 The address the code went to

Spelled out in full, so you can see it is the one you meant.

3 Six boxes, one digit each

The cursor starts in the first and advances as you type.

4 Resend code

If it does not arrive within a minute or two.

5 Verify code

Grey until all six boxes are filled.

2 Username

What you will sign in with, and what support will ask for.

3 Country

Sets the dialling code.

4 Phone number

Ten digits for India; the length follows the country.

5 Password

With an eye to reveal it.

6 Confirm password

Must match.

7 Create account

Grey until all four fields are valid. Each box outlines as it passes, so you can see which one is still holding you up.

08What if I forget my password?

The reset runs in three steps: identify yourself, enter the code that is emailed to you, then choose a new password. Email or username both work, and the code always goes to the address already on the account — never to one typed here.

09Your account, plan and device

Plans and expiry

Your account carries a plan with an expiry date. The days remaining sit in the title bar, and the plan and date are in the profile card (§26). When a plan runs out, sign-in is refused with a Plan Expired message rather than silently degrading — so you are never halfway through a repair before you find out.

How do I move W2R Schematics to another PC?

A licence is tied to the computer it was activated on. A different machine — or the same one after a motherboard swap, a disk replacement or a Windows reinstall — is refused with a hardware-ID error. HD Reset on the sign-in window releases the licence so the next sign-in can claim the new machine.

Fill the form first

The reset is authenticated with your username and password, so type them into the sign-in fields before pressing the button.

It releases every device

Not just the old one. Whatever was signed in will have to sign in again.

Three in any 30 days

A rolling limit. The refusal names the date the oldest one drops out of the window.

No password?

A Google-only account may not have one. Set one with Forgot password first (§8).

Why is my sign-in refused?

Each failure gives you a specific dialog rather than a generic error, and most of them offer a WhatsApp support button that opens a chat with your username already filled in. Every message and what to do about it is listed in §29.

10The main window

One window holds everything: the library on the left, your open documents in the middle, and the account and view controls along the top.

1 Product mark

Returns you to the home page from anywhere.

2 Days remaining

What is left on your plan, counted down daily.

3 Light / dark

Switches the whole application, viewers included.

4 Account chip

Your name and plan; opens the profile card (§26).

5 Menu bar

File, Preferences, Help, Tools.

6 Split view

PDF | PCB and PDF | PDF — see §14.

7 Library search

Filters the tree as you type — §13.

8 Notice and news

A ticker of service notices and newly added files.

9 The file tree

The whole library — §12.

The menus

The sidebar

The library tree sits on the left. Drag the divider to resize it, or click the small ‹ › chevron on the divider to collapse and restore it.

11The home page

What you land on after signing in, and what the product mark returns you to. It is the first tab, and it is pinned — it cannot be closed.

Extend your access

Plan cards — one, two and three year — with the current price, the saving, and a WhatsApp button that opens a chat with sales.

Panic Checker

A quick diagnostic. Launch Tool analyses the application and the machine and reports anything that would stop it working.

Update Log

The newest files added to the library, newest first, with the date each arrived — the fastest way to see whether a board you need has landed.

Request a file · Report an issue

Two tabs of one form: request type, category, brand, the model and details, and a photo of the board. The second tab sends a fault rather than a request.

12The file tree

The sidebar is your library, arranged category → brand → model → file. It is hosted in the cloud, and it is the only way files get into the app — there is deliberately no File → Open. Nothing is downloaded until you open it.

Boardview

Opens in the board viewer (§16).

Layout · Schematics · Service Manual

PDFs, opened in the schematic viewer (§15).

A green dot

This model carries at least one repair solution (§20).

Opening files

While a file downloads, a progress overlay covers the window showing the filename, the percentage and the size. You can cancel it with the Cancel button or by pressing Esc.

Text size

Three ways to the same setting: Ctrl + / − / 0 while the tree has focus, the A−/A+ buttons in the search row, or Preferences → File Tree Text Size, which works from anywhere.

13Searching the library

The search box sits above the tree. Type any part of a model name or board number and the tree collapses to the matches, with the matched text picked out. The × button clears the search and restores the full tree.

14Tabs and split view

Every document you open becomes a tab, colour-coded by type: orange for a boardview, red for a PDF. Ctrl Tab cycles forward and Ctrl Shift Tab back.

PDF | PCB

A schematic on one side, the board on the other — the usual pairing when you are tracing a net from the diagram onto the hardware.

PDF | PDF

Two documents — a schematic beside the service manual, say, or a known-good board revision against the one on your bench.

Swap

Exchanges the left and right panels.

The link button

On either toolbar. Ties the two halves together, so jumping to a part in one moves the other to match.

15The schematic viewer

Opens Layout, Schematics and Service Manual files. Pages are drawn on demand, so a three-hundred-page manual opens as quickly as a single sheet, and the fine print stays sharp at high zoom.

The toolbar

Mouse

Right-click menu

Copy, Paste, Find Component in… and Find Net in… — the last two name the linked boardview tab explicitly, and let you say whether the text you selected is a component reference or a net, rather than letting the app guess.

16The board viewer

Opens Boardview files: the physical PCB, drawn to scale, with every component, pad and net in its real position. The board is drawn live rather than as a picture, so you can zoom to a single pad without it turning to mush.

1 Rotate · flip

Turn the board 90°, or mirror it horizontally or vertically — for when you are looking at the underside of the board in your hand.

2 Zoom out · in · fit

Ctrl+wheel does the same over the board. Fit whenever you lose your bearings.

3 Full screen

F11. Esc comes back.

4 Trace layers · diode readings · ratsnest · RFFE

The four display toggles — they change what is drawn, not how it is framed (§17).

5 Board information · solution notes

Two panels about the open board.

6 Lock board

Freezes pan and zoom, so a stray drag cannot move what you were looking at — useful once you have framed a shot under the microscope.

7 Board colour

Graphite, Navy or Plum.

8 Link

Ties this half of a split view to the other.

9 Search, with previous and next

Finds a part or a net; the arrows step between hits.

Mouse

Right-click menu

Find Net and Find Component — both naming the element you right-clicked — so you can say exactly which one you mean in the linked schematic.

17Reading a board

Clicking is the whole interface: click a part to see what it is, click a pad to light up everything else on that net.

1 Panel header

Names the selected net; the ✕ closes the panel.

2 Net connections

Every part sitting on the selected net, with its pin. Searchable.

3 Component pins

Every pad of the selected part, with the net each one carries. Also searchable — the quickest way to find one pin on a large IC.

4 A pin and its net

Click a row to jump to that pad on the board.

5 The grip

Drag to resize. Each grip resizes only the list directly above it — the other keeps the height you gave it. Double-click a grip to reset that list.

Trace layers

With trace layers on, the copper is drawn as well as the pads, so you can follow a track from one pad to the next. Clicking a trace then selects its net and lights every pad on it.

Ratsnest

Ratsnest draws a straight airwire between the pads of a net, which is how you see where a signal goes when the copper is on an inner layer you cannot see.

Diode readings

On boards that carry the data, diode readings prints the expected meter value beside each pad as D:0.506, with OL where the reading is open. They appear only past about 2× zoom, so they never clutter a whole-board view, and they also show in the pin tooltip as you hover. It turns the boardview into a reference for what your multimeter should be reading.

18Using the schematic and board together

This is what the software is really for. Everything above is in service of this section. Open a schematic and a board file and put them side by side with PDF | PCB (§14).

How tabs get linked

Schematic and board tabs are paired automatically as you open them — the first schematic with the first board, and so on. Once paired, the link button ties the two together and cross-search starts working.

Cross-search — the fastest way to find a net

You are reading the schematic and you find the rail you want to check: VDD_MAIN. Double-click it. W2R Schematics searches the linked board for it, highlights every pad on that net, zooms to it, and brings the board tab forward. Put your probe down where it is pointing.

It works from the board too. Double-click a pin and the schematic jumps to the page where that net appears and highlights it. If you want to be explicit about whether you are searching for a net or a component, right-click instead and choose Find Net or Find Component.

19The Hardware Solutions viewer

Hardware solutions are annotated repair guides — jumper routes, replacement parts, reball diagrams, drawn as layered artwork over the board. They open in their own read-only viewer.

A floating Hardware Solutions card sits at the bottom right with the layer list. Toggle layers on and off, solo a single layer, or show them all — peeling back the repair drawing one layer at a time.

20Repair solutions

A repair solution is an annotated repair — jumper routes, replaced parts, a known-good procedure — pinned to the actual nets and components it concerns and drawn directly on the boardview. Instead of reading “check the nets around the charging IC,” you see those nets lit up on the board in front of you, and the next person does not have to work it out again.

Official · Users

Who wrote it, each with a count. Official comes from the W2R team, Users from other technicians.

Preview · duplicate · delete

Act on the selected solution.

+ New

Opens the editor to write your own — §21.

Working with the overlay

Pick a section and its nets and components are traced out on the board with a highlight. A legend panel appears listing each line in the solution as a clickable pill:

Click a pill

Shows or hides that net, and zooms to it

Show All / Clear All

The buttons in the legend header

One-by-One mode

Steps through the solution one net at a time — follow it like a checklist while you work

Click a wire or pin on the board

Focuses that net

Repair notes

Each section can carry a written note — what the fault looks like, what to check, what to replace. Net names inside a note are clickable: click one and the board focuses that net, so the written procedure and the physical board stay in step as you read.

21Writing your own solution

When you solve something worth keeping, save it as a solution — for yourself, and for everyone else working on the same board. + New in the solutions sidebar opens the editor: name the fault, mark the parts and connections on the board itself, and save.

A solution is a list of sections — one per fault or procedure — and each section is a list of entries pairing a label with the nets it involves.

+ Section

Adds a new fault or procedure

+ Entry

Adds a labelled line of nets to the current section

Delete

Removes the selected row. The Delete key does the same.

▲ ▼

Reorders rows — put the steps in the order you would actually do them

Insert Net ▾

In the notes pane. Drops a clickable net reference into the note, so readers can click straight from your words to the board.

Save

Saves the solution against this board.

Revert

Discards your unsaved changes

Double-click any cell to edit its label or its net list in place.

22RFFE tools

RF front-end work has its own panel, opened by the RFFE button on the board toolbar. It picks out the front-end devices on the open board and gives the bus detail for each, so the RFFE nets stand out from everything else on the board. Whether those highlights pulse or sit still is controlled by RFFE blink under Preferences → PCB Viewer (§24).

23CPU Finder

CPU Finder, in the Tools menu, opens a searchable table of phone models and the chipset each one uses — for when a board arrives with no markings you can read and you need to know what you are looking at.

• Search by brand, model or chipset. The table filters as you type and tells you how many of the total you are seeing.
• Right-click a row → Copy Chipset puts the chipset name on the clipboard, ready to paste into a parts search.

The window is non-modal — leave it open beside your board while you work.

24Preferences

Four submenus. Everything here is remembered between sessions.

PCB Theme

File Tree Text Size

PCB Viewer — animation and blinking

Animations

The master. Turning it off greys the six below but keeps their ticks, so switching it back on restores your choices rather than turning everything on.

Net & component highlight blink

Off by default. The pulsing sat on top of the very thing you are trying to read, so a highlighted net now stays lit and steady. Turn it on here if you prefer the old behaviour.

Solution trace reveal

Draws a solution's routes in as it opens.

Solution glow & signal particles

The moving emphasis on a solution's nets.

Dim other nets when one is focused

Fades everything that is not the selected net.

RFFE blink

Pulses the RF front-end highlights.

Panel & toolbar animations

The window's own movement — panels sliding, toolbars fading.

Language

25Appearance and board themes

App theme

The light / dark switch in the title bar changes the whole application, viewers included. Your choice is remembered.

Board themes

The board has its own colour themes, independent of the app theme — copper, pads, silkscreen, nets and highlights are all separately coloured. This matters more than it sounds: the right contrast makes a hairline trace visible that the wrong one hides.

Apply Theme → Theme 1–4

Switches between the four presets; the tick shows which is live.

Create New Theme…

Opens the theme editor, where every board element has its own colour picker.

Edit Theme · Delete Theme

List your own themes once you have saved one. The four presets are protected and cannot be edited or deleted — create your own instead.

Board colour button

On the board toolbar: a quick switch between Graphite, Navy and Plum (§16).

26Your account

The account chip in the top-right corner opens the profile card.

27Updates

W2R Schematics checks its version when you sign in. If a newer one is available you get an Update Available dialog with Update Now and Later. Choosing Update Now downloads the new installer — with a progress bar in the dialog — and runs it.

After an update, a What's New dialog appears once, listing what changed.

Your current version is in Help → About, along with the website, WhatsApp, Instagram and YouTube links.

28Keyboard shortcuts

29Troubleshooting

Sign-in and account messages

Other problems

30Support

Account problems — blocked accounts, expired plans, activation keys, device resets — are fastest on WhatsApp. The dialogs in the app that report these problems have a WhatsApp button that opens the chat with your username already filled in, so use that rather than typing it out.