West African Journal of Industrial and Academic Research Vol.7 No. 1 June 2013 48 Computer-based Reverse Engineering of a Manual Weighting Spring Balance. Ituma, Chinagolum 1 , Igboke Eshina Monday 2 ,Onwukwe Ogonnaya C 3 Computer Science Department, Ebonyi State University Abakaliki chinagolumituma@yahoo.com Abstract Every man from birth till date has been affected by weight and weight measurement in one way or the other. Weight is a body's relative mass or the quantity of matter contained by it, giving rise to a downward force. A weighting spring balance is a machine used to measure the weight of an object. Some weighing balances are manual weighing balance and the others are digital weighing balance. Computer based reverse engineering of the weighing spring balance is a systematic reconstruction of a manual spring weighting balance to include a digital hardware circuit that can interfaces the spring balance to the computer. This research work shows the benefits of interfacing a weighting balance to a digital computer. Weights of objects can be read directly off the computer and the records of transactions kept in the computer. Computer based reverse engineering of a manual weighting spring balance involves a systematic study of the existing weighting balance, the design and development of the hardware interface and the development of the software to read from the manual spring balance. The researchers came up with digital encoder interface that connects to the computer through the parallel port. The weighting spring balance spindle that indicates the weight of the measured object is connected with a conductor that runs through the digital encoder. Modularization research methodology is used in this research work were the research work is broken down into modules; the different modules were designed, developed, tested and integrated. The result of the research is a manual spring balance that can be interfaced to a computer so as to directly capture the data of a weighed object and other associated data or parameter into a digital computer. Keywords: Reverse Engineering, Weighting Spring balance, Systematic reconstruction, Digital interface, Digital encoder. 1.0 Introduction The Online Dictionary defines weight as: (i) a measure of the heaviness of an object. [1] and (ii) The force with which a body is attracted to Earth or another celestial body, equal to the product of the object's mass and the acceleration of gravity.[1] Every human being on our planet is affected by weight and measures in some ways from the moment we are born and throughout our daily living. Weighing and measuring are important and vital part of our existence. Our body, food we eat and all the products we use as an integral part of modern living have all been weighed and measured at some stage in their development and production. Computer based reverse engineering of a manual weighting balance is the interfacing of a weighing scale (spring balance) with a computer system. The system is made up of software and hardware components. The hardware make-up include: encoder, spring balance, printer cable and computer system etc. The system measures objects placed on the spring weighting device and with the help of an encoder reads the signal (measurement) into a computer system. The digital signal, read into the computer