Retrofitting

Retrofitting is the process of adding new features, components, or systems to an existing product—features that were not part of the original design. One of the most significant retrofitting project I've done in my twenty-fives years with ST Electronics is upgrading the disc drive system on the RADCOM test station for the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF).

Believe it or not, the RADCOM test programs—the very heart of its ability to diagnose E-2C avionics—were stored on magnetic cartridges. Not hard drives as we know them today. Not solid-state memory. Magnetic cartridges, about the size of a three-stacked 15-inch pizza, mounted in an HP7906 disc drive and run off an HP1000 host computer.

Over time, the disc access heads of the HP7906 drive built up ferrite dirt. Microscopic particles, accumulated through normal operation, clinging to the heads that read the magnetic media. And when those dirty heads passed over the cartridges, they could cause a head crash—the read head literally scraping against the magnetic surface, scratching it, destroying the data.

It happened more often than anyone liked. Cartridges that had worked for years suddenly became unreadable. Scrap. Trash. Years of test programs, lost to a few microns of ferrite dust. The RSAF was desperate. They had approached Grumman Aerospace—the original equipment manufacturer—for help. Grumman came back with an interim upgrade solution. Price tag: 1.5 million US dollars.

The RSAF project manager reached out to us. After researching for alternative solutions, we decided on the magneto-optical (MO) drive. It uses laser and magnetic technology together, writing data to discs that were far more robust than magnetic cartridges. No head crashes. No ferrite dirt. No scratched media. More importantly, it could be configured to emulate older storage devices. To the host computer, it would look exactly like an HP7906 disc drive. The system wouldn't know the difference. The test programs would load and run exactly as before.

Over the following months, we transferred hundreds of test programs from their vulnerable cartridges to the robust MO discs. Each migration was verified. Each program was tested. By the end, the entire RADCOM test suite lived on media that wouldn't scratch, wouldn't crash, wouldn't fail. 

The cost to the RSAF? Less than half of what Grumman had asked.

The project manager called me after the final acceptance to personally thank me. I appreciated the sentiment. But the real reward was seeing those MO drives spin up day after day, month after month, never losing a single byte of data.

Another obsolescence issue resolved—this time through retrofitting.

Ps: You can read the details and more in my latest book, A Memoir of Electronics, Discoveries, and a Life Less Ordinary by clicking on the book title.

The Hidden Engine of Refurbishing

A novice refurbisher focuses on cleaning and repairing products. A professional refurbisher focuses on flow—a steady, predictable stream of incoming used products (cores) and an efficient, low-cost channel for delivering finished goods to buyers. Refurbishing creates a circular supply chain. Unlike linear manufacturing (raw materials → factory → use → disposal), refurbishing feeds used products back into the value stream. 

If you really want to go into the refurbishing business, you'll need to know about supply chain and reverse logistics, which include the following areas:

▪ Sourcing cores (where used products come from) 
▪ Reverse logistics networks (getting cores to your facility) 
▪ Inventory management (balancing supply and demand) 
▪ Quality variability (handling the unknown) 
▪ Outbound logistics (selling and shipping refurbished units) 

▪ Metrics for a healthy refurbishing supply chain 

I've listed some references for further reading:

▪ Rogers, D. S., & Tibben-Lembke, R. S. (1999). Going Backwards: Reverse Logistics Trends and Practices. Reverse Logistics Executive Council. 
▪ Guide, V. D. R., & Van Wassenhove, L. N. (2009). "The Evolution of Closed-Loop Supply Chain Research." Operations Research, 57(1), 10-18. 
▪ International Organization for Standardization. (2018). ISO 14021: Environmental labels and declarations—Self-declared environmental claims (includes guidance on refurbished claims).

Hope that helps.

 

The Refurbishment Window

Not every product is a good candidate for refurbishing at every point in its life. The figure above illustrates the concept of the refurbishment window. Refurbishing is most valuable when a product has passed its early reliable life but still has significant structural value remaining.

Safety Warning: Never refurbish safety-critical components where failure could cause injury or death. This includes brake components, airbags, medical implants, pressure vessel seals, and aircraft structural parts. Refurbishing is for convenience and cost savings—not for life safety.

The Repair Trap 

One of the most common errors in asset management is the repair trap: repeatedly repairing a product because each repair has low upfront cost, while ignoring the accumulating total cost and downtime. Refurbishing resets the clock at a fraction of replacement cost as the figure below shows:

Despite the virtues of refurbishing, replacement is sometimes unavoidable. So when do you choose repair or replacement over refurbishing? The decision tree below might help:

The choice between repair, refurbish, and replace depends on four criteria: required reliability, available time, budget, and strategic value. 

 

The Refurbishing Workflow

If you're doing a one-off refurbishing job in your daily repair work, then a workflow may not really matter much. But if you're thinking of making refurbishing a sustaining business model then it is imperative to adopt a proper process to ensure success.

Refurbishing follows a repeatable workflow, though the depth of each step varies by product type. Of interest is the first step: Intake/Triage. What exactly is triage, you might ask. In refurbishment, it refers to the initial, rapid assessment and sorting of returned, damaged, or aging items to determine the most cost-effective action: repair, refurbish, resell, or dispose. This process prevents wasting resources on irreparably damaged items and prioritizes those that can be quickly returned to the market. 

You might not realize it but intake triage is the most economically critical stage. A misclassified unit will lose money at every subsequent step. Here's an economic triage rule you would do well to adhere to: 

A product is economically viable for refurbishing if (Resale value of refurbished unit) – (Cost of parts + labor + overhead) ≥ 30% of resale value. That's the minimum margin threshold and it varies by business model. If the margin falls below this threshold, the product is better used as a donor unit or sent to recycling.

A "donor" unit in refurbishing refers to a used, broken, or identical device (often a hard drive, appliance, or electronic component) that is utilized to supply parts for the repair of a "patient" device. This process allows technicians to restore non-functional equipment to working condition by replacing damaged, rare, or obsolete parts that are no longer produced. It's also referred to as "parts harvesting".

It is also important that each unit received during the intake has a unique tracking identifier (serial number, barcode, or RFID). This ID follows the product through all six stages, creating an audit trail. It ensures traceability, compliance, and quality control, providing visibility into the "who, what, and when" of the refurbishing process. 

Bet not many know of such details involved in starting a refurbishing business. There's more but I'll stop here for now. Once I sort out the workflow process in my upcoming book, you'll have the needed information all in one place.

 

Is Refurbishing Viable?

Refurbishing is not suitable for every product. The table above summarizes the sweet spot. The rule of thumb is simple: If a product's value is more than 3-5 times the cost of common replacement parts, and safety does not depend on its exact original tolerances, refurbishing is viable. 

However, refurbishing is not a panacea. Engineers and asset managers must recognize its boundaries. Refurbishing does not reset the fatigue life of mechanical components. A refurbished fan motor with new bearings still has an aged stator winding. Intermittent faults or degraded components (e.g., capacitors near end of life) may not be detected. Also, a refurbished product typically lasts 30-60% as long as a new one, and refurbished items usually have shorter warranties with added conditions.

Always do your homework and be realistic in your expectations.

 

Planned Obsolescence

How many ever heard of this term? If you hear remarks like, "They don't make things like they used to." and "Things don't last as long as they did in the past."—then you'll know what I mean.

Planned obsolescence is a profitable but short-sighted strategy: it drives repeat sales by intentionally limiting a product's lifespan, yet it shifts hidden costs onto consumers and the environment. While it can sustain business cycles, it often undermines trust, encourages waste, and runs counter to more sustainable, circular approaches to design and manufacturing.

The term gained currency in the 1950s, but the concept is older. Manufacturers discovered that durable products—products that lasted decades—limited repeat sales. The solution was to design products with intentionally limited lifespans. This is accomplished through one or more of the mechanisms listed in the above table.

Refurbishing directly counters systemic and functional obsolescence by keeping products in service. It does little against psychological obsolescence—you cannot refurbish a status symbol back into fashion. 

What is your take on this manufacturer-related issue?

 

What's the Difference?

Since I'm setting out to write a book about the three R's, it's worth establishing a clear boundary at the outset. (see above table)

Refurbishing is the most accessible of the three strategies: 

• It requires no specialized tooling (screwdrivers, cleaning supplies, basic test equipment) 
  
• It can be performed in a small workshop or even a garage 
• It has the lowest barrier to entry for small businesses and entrepreneurs 
• It delivers value quickly (days, not weeks)

Refurbishing is also the most scalable in terms of volume. A remanufacturing line for automotive engines is a capital-intensive operation. A refurbishing line for laptops can be set up in a warehouse with rented tables and hired labor. 

And refurbishing is often the only economically viable strategy for low-to-medium value products. No one remanufactures a $50 coffee maker. But thousands of coffee makers are refurbished every day. In short, refurbishing works because it aligns economic incentives with life extension. It is not charity. It is good business. 

 

Refurbishing

In my previous company, I've done quite a fair bit of refurbishing work on top of PCB testing and repairs. One such project I still recall fondly was the control panel of a lighthouse installation on the controversial island-rock of Pedra Branca.

The unit was sent to my work centre for repair—not just the PCB within but also the front panel which suffered defacing from constant use. After assessing various options, I reckoned that the easiest and safest way was to recreate the panel layout using Microsoft Visio, print out in color and laminate the pieces, which were then affixed over the original damaged artwork using double sided tapes.

Crude, but it worked and was aesthetically appealing as far as the customer was concerned. That was my first attempt at refurbishing and I was quite pleased with the outcome.

Industrial refurbishing, however, is more than just a cosmetic operation. Once you define what refurbishing is as the starting point of combating obsolescence, the process—from assessment to aesthetics becomes obvious. Then the decision naturally rests on when to choose refurbishing over repair and replacement.

This is the route I'm taking as I started out to write for the first of three parts for my upcoming book on Solutions to Obsolescence. It'll be a good idea to also throw in an actual case study to cement the practice, if necessary.

We'll see how that works out...

 

The Three R's Relationships

The relationships between the three R's can be quite intricate for the uninitiated to the world of obsolescence. So I've created a simple venn diagram to illustrate their intertwining similarities and differences.

As a first cut, I've come up with a preliminary paragraph for my book blurb:

Obsolescence is not the end—it’s an opportunity.

Every year, millions of tons of equipment—from industrial machinery and medical devices to electronics and building systems—are discarded not because they have failed, but because they are “outdated.” In an era of supply chain fragility, rising material costs, and mounting environmental pressure, the ability to extend product life is no longer a niche skill—it is a strategic imperative.

I will not divulge much on what I intend to cover as there are still grey areas that need to be sorted out. In fact, writing on a topic of this magnitude can be quite a challenge. Perhaps if I have the opportunity to explore further with ASTER's business model and process, it will become clearer what direction the book should take.

Until then...

The Three R's in the Work

I've spent a couple of days designing the front cover for my next engineering book. I decided that the best way to accelerate and build my knowledge on the subject of remanufacturing is to write a book on it, alongside two others I'm familiar with—refurbishing and retrofitting. Hence the title of the book.

Back in 2009, my former company had sponsored me to attend a course "Diminishing Manufacturing Sources and Material Shortages (DMSMS)" conducted by Donald Seger. This was in view of the threat of obsolescence stemming from a shortage of critical electronic components and the importance of stocking up based on predict forecast of the repair works we were doing.

On hindsight, it was an eye-opening experience though I did not link it to the three R's as the plausible Solution to Obsolescence. Now that I revisited the subject after my eventful visit to the ASTER facilities, I'm beginning to see how all these things tie up.

As usual, I will need to write a book blurb to keep me focus on what I want to write. Chapter outline will then follow, subject to changes as the work progresses, of course. It will be both interesting and challenging. And I suspect it will take me beyond electronics—well into the broader industries facing this same problem.

We'll see how it goes...

Solutions to Obsolescence

My recent visit to ASTER has set me thinking about the problem of obsolescene, not just in the electronics industry but other sectors as well—commercial and military.

Granted, in my previous company I had taken on several jobs by the military to address their obsolescence concern, albeit on a smaller, customized scale, which included refurbishing and retrofitting their aging equipment. But ASTER has up the ante by doing remanufacturing—which is on an institutional scale.

It's not hard to see that there are three options to the obsolescence problem:

1. Refurbishing
2. Retrofitting
3. Remanufacturing

So which option is suitable? That depends on the kind of issue you have on hand. If it's just  low-cost cosmetic and basic functional restoration, then refurbishing is the way to go. If it's adding new features to an old platform, retrofitting would fit the bill. But if you want to return a high-value asset to like-new reliability with a full warranty, consider remanufacturing—but be prepared to fork out cash.

In other words, refurbishing is the light-weight solution, retrofitting provides strategic upgrades, while remanufacturing entails deep industrial processes.

ASTER

The name may not ring a bell to many people in Singapore. And no, it's got nothing to do with the leading provider of chemical and energy solutions in Singapore and Southeast Asia by the same name.

Right after my last post, I was informed by my former manager that someone from ST Engineering, a deputy president of International & PSS/SG BizDigital Systems, asking for my contact. Soon after, someone by the name Leo contacted me. He introduced himself as a deputy general manager of ASTER, a subsidiary of ST Engineering specializing in Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul (MRO) services for the Singapore Armed Forces.

Leo claimed that he and his team had read my books on PCB Reverse Engineering, and would like to invite me to tour their remanufacturing facility. That piqued my curiosity and I readily accepted the invitation.

We fixed a date in early April. I was given a VIP reception upon arrival and the heads of each section in turn introduced their workplace and process flow, accompanied by the DGM himself and a few support staff. It was quite an eye-opening experience to be given free access to their electronics lab, mechanical workshop, engine bay, and the various test setups. There were similarity in some of their work practices that I could identify with my former work centre, but the majority of what I observed were new to me.

I was deeply impressed by what I saw.

At the end of the tour, we adjorned to a cozy meeting room where refreshments awaited. The DGM asked for my opinion on their setup, and whether there are room for improvements in terms of the processes and practices. In all honesty, I was humbled by the thought that someone of my status, a secluded self-published author, was given such recognition and honor at an institutional-scaled setting.

We had a good time of discussion and the engineers present eagerly asked questions to tap on my experience in reverse engineering and obsolescence solution. I reckoned this first meeting would not be the last, as the DGM generously offered his team and facilities at my service for a possible future collaboration.

I took note of his kind offer and promised to get back to him and his lead engineer, once I am able to provide a viable solution to their black box issue in PCB reverse engineering. In the meantime, there will be a lot of catching up on my part to get up to speed on the subject of remanufacturing.

Ps: As I made my way out, one of the security guards, a retired civil servant, came and shook my hand. He recognized me as the author of an eschatological book he read, and expressed his appreciation for the insights gained from my theological work. Now, that really surprised me and make my day!

A Trilogy in the Works...

(Click on the image to go to the HAVAH blogsite)

In the first half of last year, I completed and published the sequel to HAVAH, a sci-fi novel that centers around the AI entity who gained sentience. Then, I diverted to other novels and books of a devotional nature for a change.

Since completing my memoir, I am now contemplating on resuming the HAVAH series to give it a trilogy. It's definitely not an easy undertaking and I'm exploring different approaches and possible storylines to up the ante. This is expected of any sci-fi series worthy of any ardent reader of this genre.

Hopefully, I can get all the details sort out to start writing the next adventure for my favorite protagonists. If you have read my engineering books and found it enjoyable, I am sure you will find the HAVAH stories equally compelling and engaging.

Do give it a try and let me have your thoughts. Thank you very much!

 

Release Announcement!

(Click on book cover to order)

For readers who have been following the progress of my memoir, I'm happy to annouce that the final draft has been completed and submitted for publication on Amazon KDP. It will be available for order on March 23, 2026.

It has been an emotional journey retracing the steps I took from a boy of nine whose first exposure to electronics led to a career which, if I may put it succinctly, brought not only immeasurable joy and fulfillment but a treasure trove of knowledge that resulted in a legacy of six engineering books to the PCB-RE community.

Now that the snapshots of my memories have been put into print, there is no more regret as far as I can honestly attest. The only hope I have now is that readers around the world will be inspired by my words to go farther and do better in their own journeys.

I look forward to your support and reviews in the days ahead. Take care and stay safe, my friends!

 

Completing the Circuit

And so, here we are.

The full schematic of a life. Traced connection by connection, component by component, from the boy with the first spark to the man with six engineering books and a lifetime of memories.

Every path had a purpose, even when I couldn't see it at the time. The sacrifice that led me to the Air Force. The training that defined my skills. The mentors who taught me to see. The apprentices who carried the knowledge forward. The wife who believed when it was all she could offer.

The circuit is complete. Not finished—life continues, and who knows what new components may yet be added? But complete in the sense of coherent. Understood. Traced and mapped and made visible.

I look back at the journey and feel only gratitude. For the challenges that strengthened me. For the people who shaped me. For the work that gave me purpose. For the readers who made the writing worthwhile. Nothing that happened was wasted. Every moment contributed to the whole.

That's the beauty of a full schematic.

 

The Published Author

It's been over ten years since I exchanged the workbench for the writing desk.

Ten years. A decade. When I look back, it feels both long and short—long in terms of what I've accomplished, short in terms of how quickly the time has passed.

I have written a total of six engineering books. Each one well received by the engineering community. Each one contributing, in its own way, to the body of knowledge around PCB reverse engineering.

But I didn't stop there.

In between the engineering titles, I ventured into other genres. Family. Faith. Fiction. Writing, like engineering, is multi-disciplined. I couldn't be content with just writing about technical stuff. There were other stories to tell, other worlds to explore.

You never know what you're capable of until you try. That mantra has stuck with me through all these years.

In the process, my writing journey took on a life of its own. Not by compulsion or necessity, but by the sheer pleasure of discovering new worlds. Of seeing what words and imagination can come up with when you give them free rein.

Through trials and errors, I've come to realize that not every genre works for every author. My non-engineering books are well-received by peers and friends. That's about it. 

I've wished, sometimes, that international readers would give my other works a chance to land on their bookshelves—the way they did the engineering titles.

But perhaps that's not how it's meant to be. Perhaps my engineering voice is the one that resonates beyond my immediate circle. 

And that's enough. More than enough.

 

The Affirmation

When the final draft of "The Art of PCB Reverse Engineering" was ready, I launched it through Amazon Createspace—now called Kindle Direct Publishing.

Then I waited.

Within two weeks, there were sales.

Not many, but some. Enough to know that people were actually buying the book. Enough to hope that they might read it.

Soon, reviews appeared.

Most were positive. Encouraging. Some readers expressed appreciation for my engaging style of writing—words that meant more to me than any technical compliment.

It was then that I realized something important. I had found a way to transform boring engineering facts into enjoyable narratives. Not by diluting the content, but by framing it as story. By sharing not just what to do, but why it mattered. By revealing the beauty hidden in the work.

That was the affirmation I needed.

 

What It Means to Self-Publish

When I started out to become an author, leaving the comfort of thirty years in full-time employment, I had no idea how my first book would be received.

I worked on it for almost a year while doing part-time at ST Electronics. Juggling between work and writing is a feat not for the fainthearted. There were days when I came home tired from the lab and had to summon energy to write. There were weekends when I would have rather rested, but instead sat at my desk, wrestling with chapters.

I couldn't remember how many times I ground through each chapter. Every footnote. Every reference. Just to be sure I got everything right where it belonged.

Writing a book, I discovered, is not like writing a report. Reports have a beginning, middle, and end. They convey information and stop. Books need flow. They need rhythm. They need to carry the reader along, not just dump facts in their lap.

As a self-published author, I had to manage everything.

Writing, of course. But also editing—going through each sentence, each paragraph, each chapter, looking for ways to improve. Proofreading—catching the typos and grammatical errors that inevitably creep in. Designing the book cover—creating something that would catch a browser's eye and make them want to look inside.

These were skills of a different kind. Skills I picked up along the way, learning by doing, making mistakes and correcting them.

 

From Engineer to Author

Many experienced engineers prefer practical hands-on work to writing books.

Not because they're bad at writing. They do it every day—emails, reports, findings, training notes if they teach. Technical writing is part of the job. But writing a book? That's an entirely different ball game.

Besides the challenge of learning a new craft, you need to write with clarity and in an engaging manner. You can't bore your readers. You can't lose them in a jungle of engineering jargon. Engineers can state a technical fact accurately—that's what we're trained to do. Perhaps we can even state it clearly. But to write engagingly? To make someone want to read about circuits and diagnostics?

That's a skill most of us never develop.

I've often heard people say engineers are a boring lot. Lacking creativity and imagination. Stuck in left-brain thinking, unable to connect with normal humans. I wouldn't consider myself a boring person. But I'll have to admit: most people become lost whenever I tell them about my work. Their eyes glaze over. They nod politely. They look for an exit.

I've thought about why this happens. This was the new challenge I faced when starting out.

How do you translate technical expertise into prose that people actually want to read?

How do you explain complex ideas simply, without losing the depth that makes them valuable?

For engineers, this struggle is real. More real than we'd like to admit.

 

The Urge to Write

Being able to live a fulfilling life is one thing. Being able to pass on what you know to posterity is entirely another.

The urge to write had been growing for years. Quietly at first, then more persistently. It whispered to me during quiet moments at the workbench. It nudged me when I explained a concept to a junior engineer and saw understanding dawn in their eyes. It tapped me on the shoulder when I read technical books and thought, I could do this. I have something to say.

The urge to document. To capture what I had learned. To share it with others who might need it. But stepping out of my comfort zone—leaving a well-paid, promising career—was something most people would think twice about. Three times. Forever.

I was no different. I thought about it constantly.

I talked to Bernice about my dream of writing books. At first, she was taken aback. Her mind went to the obvious places: problems at work, burnout, the nine-to-five grind finally getting to me.

But after understanding where I was coming from, she advised that I take small steps instead of plunging headlong into it. I heeded her advice and arranged with my company to work part-time while attempting my first book.

This was another transitional phase of my career life. I looked forward to it with excitement and anticipation.

Will the dream of authoring my own book materialize? Or will it just be a temporary distraction—something I dabbled in and then abandoned when the reality of writing proved harder than the fantasy?

Only time would tell.

 

A Personal Thread

Through all these years, through all the work and teaching and quiet accumulation of expertise, another story was unfolding.

I had joined the Air Force to support my family after my father's heart attack. That commitment never ended. Even after my siblings graduated, found their jobs, married, and moved away, I remained. As the eldest son, I took on the role of caregiver for my aging parents.

After father passed on, I continued to care for my mum, to be present, to fulfill the role I had accepted so many years before.

It wasn't easy staying single all those years.

My mother, like mothers everywhere, would often bring up the subject of starting my own family. Gently at first, then more persistently as the years passed. She worried. She wondered. She hoped.

I would just smile and tell her, "When it comes, it comes."

And then, in my early forties, it came.

Through the help of a friend, I got to know this wonderful woman. Her name was Bernice. She was kind, intelligent, patient—all the qualities one hopes for in a life partner. We connected in ways I hadn't expected, hadn't even realized I was missing.

A little late, perhaps. Most people start families earlier. Most people have decades together before retirement approaches.

But as they say: better late than never.

 

The Quiet Years

Days turned into weeks. Weeks into months. Months into years.

The long, stable decades passed quickly—not in a blur, but in a rhythm. The work, the colleagues, the daily routines. Projects started and completed. Problems solved and new ones appearing to take their place. Engineers came and went, some staying years, others moving on to greener pastures.

I remained.

Not because I lacked ambition. Not because I couldn't imagine doing anything else. But because this work, this place, this community of problem-solvers—it fit me. It suited the way my mind worked, the way I approached challenges, the way I found satisfaction in the careful unraveling of mysteries.

Yet in the midst of all this, a subtle shift was taking place.

I was moving, slowly and without quite realizing it, from simply doing the work to understanding that I had something to share. A deep well of knowledge that others might need. Lessons learned through years of trial and error, success and failure, patient observation and sudden insight.

The question was not whether I had something to teach. The question was who would want to learn.

In my twenty-five years at ST Electronics, I had only two true apprentices. Not for lack of opportunity. A few showed passing interest. But sustained engagement? The kind that transforms casual learning into deep mastery?

Only two.

One was a sixty-year-old engineer. The other was a young engineer half his age. They could not have been more different—in age, in experience, in life stage. But both, in their own ways, inherited pieces of what I had to offer.

Teaching isn't just about transferring knowledge. It's about witnessing. About seeing the spark catch on in another person and letting them know you've seen it.

 

The System Whisperer

The term came from my colleagues, not from me.

I never thought of myself as anything special. I was just an engineer who paid attention, who cared about the work, who refused to give up when problems seemed insurmountable. But somewhere along the way, people started noticing.

Not because I had any magical powers. Not because I could commune with machines through some mystical connection. Simply because I had learned, over years of patient work, to listen. To observe. To understand what the equipment was telling me, even when it spoke in subtle signals and obscure error codes.

Every system has a language. Most people only hear the silence when it works and the noise when it breaks. The whisperer learns to hear the conversation in between.

The systems I've worked with over the years—the RADCOM, the Factrons, the Teradynes, the WesTest, the countless boards and units and assemblies—they all have stories to tell. My job was simply to hear them.

And sometimes, to whisper back.

 

The Black Art of PCB-RE

Every trade has its expert, and every master craftsman has his tools.

PCB-RE engineers are no exception. More so, when it comes to doing this work manually—by hand, by eye, by patience and persistence. In my fifteen years of reverse engineering printed circuit boards and modular electronic units, I've come to appreciate the importance of having a good set of tools on hand. Not just the basic toolkit, but the essential ones. The ones that make the difference between frustration and flow.

Tools alone aren't enough. You also need strategy. Different types of PCBs require different reversing strategies.

Analog PCBs deal with continuous signals—voltages that vary smoothly, like audio or sensor readings. Digital PCBs deal with ones and zeros—logic levels, binary signals, data buses. Mixed-signal PCBs combine both worlds. They have analog sections, digital sections, and the circuits that connect them—analog-to-digital converters, digital-to-analog converters, and their supporting components. 

Power PCBs are their own beast. They handle higher voltages and currents, and their design is driven by different priorities—heat dissipation, efficiency, safety.

Here's something important to understand:

PCB-RE is not just about finding the connectivity of a circuit board to recreate its schematic diagram. That is the primary focus, yes. But it's not the whole story.

A lot goes into figuring out circuit topologies and functionalities. You need to arrive at a logical understanding of how the components are related, how they work together, why the designer chose this arrangement over that one. Only then can you achieve accuracy and reliability in the reversing process.

A traced connection tells you that two points are connected. It doesn't tell you why. It doesn't tell you what signals flow across that connection, or what those signals mean, or how they interact with other parts of the circuit.

That deeper understanding comes from study. From reading datasheets. From recognizing common circuit patterns. From asking, over and over: Why did they do it this way?

Learn from others, yes. Absorb their methods, their insights, their hard-won wisdom. But then develop your own technique. Find ways to surpass your own limitations. And if possible, surpass the authors who taught you.

That's how the art advances. That's how each generation builds on the last.

 

The Language of the Machines

In the course my thirty years career in Electronics, both in the air force and ST Electronics, I have worked on several automated test equipment. Each of these machines has its own language to learn and master, some in high-level descriptive form much like English, some in minimalist cryptic syntax, and some using a mix of graphical and text combinations.

My first two years in ST Electronics were spent assisting two engineers to develop test programs on the RADCOM. That's what I was headhunted to do. But I was expected to work on the Factron S700 series testers, just like the rest of the engineers in the department. This was also my expectation when I decided to join the company—to pick up new skillsets and continue my learning journey in Electronics.

Text-based machines soon gave way to graphical-based platforms as the work center sought to upgrade its capabilities and attrack young engineers who were more comfortable working in the Windows environment. Enter the Spectrum 8800 series ATEs. To protect existing assets and continue our support for the armed forces, we did quite a fair bit of test program migration and test fixture adaptation from the old machines to the new. Tedious but necessary.

When our sister subsidiary, ST Aerospace, landed on a big F-16 project to develop test program on their newly acquired WesTest 2000/DATS station, several of us senior engineers were lobed in to train on the tester and help develop the test program sets. 

The language of the machines is vast. I've learned only a small part of it. But that small part has been enough—more than enough—to sustain a career, to solve impossible problems, to find meaning and satisfaction in the work.

And the best part? I'm still learning.