To My Readers



If this is the first time you're visiting my blog, thank you. Whether you're interested or just curious to find out about PCB reverse engineering (PCB-RE), I hope you'll find something useful here.

This blog contains many snippets of the content in my books to provide a more detailed overall sampling for my would-be readers to be better informed before making the purchase. Of course, the book contains more photos and nice illustrations, as evidence from its cover page. Hopefully, this online trailer version will whet your appetite enough to want to get a copy for yourself.

Top Review

I started doing component level repair of electronics with (and without) schematics more than 40 years ago, which activity often involves reverse-engineering of printed circuit boards. Although over the years my technical interests have shifted into particle beam instrumentation, electron microscopy, and focused ion beam technology fields, till this day——and more often than not——PCB repairs have returned multiple multi-million-dollar accelerators, FIB, and SEM instruments back to operation, delivering great satisfaction and some profit.

Many of the methods described by Keng Tiong in great details are similar to the approaches I've developed, but some of the techniques are different, and as effective and useful as efficient and practical. Systematic approach and collection of useful information presented in his books are not only invaluable for a novice approaching PCB-level reverse engineering, but also very interesting reading and hands-on reference for professionals.

Focus on reverse engineering instead of original design provides unique perspective into workings of electronics, and in my opinion books by Keng Tiong (I've got all three of them) are must-read for anybody trying to develop good understanding of electronics——together with writings by Paul Horowitz and Winfield Hill, Phil Hobbs, Jim Williams, Bob Pease, Howard Johnson and Martin Graham, Sam Goldwasser, and other world's top electronics experts.

Valery Ray
Particle Beam Systems Technologist

Tuesday, January 22, 2019

Quadcopter RE

Completed the chapter on X-Ray PCB-RE about two weeks ago, and now beginning with the chapter on quadcopter RE.  Progress is a bit slow as the Chinese Lunar New Year is just two weeks away and there's a lot of preparation to be done including the annual spring cleaning.

Here's a two-page sample:


While there are four categories of drone types, I will focus on the more popular and widely deployed, the quadcopter. Of course, there are many articles and write-ups on this drone model but I hope to cover more grounds in a systematic way of analyzing its design and parts.

The DJI developed models, in particularly the Mavic Air, is of interest to me. I may not be able to post its schematic diagrams even if I reverse engineer it as there are legal implications if I do. However, a detail inspection into its components should be no issue since there are teardown videos on various drones online.

To be sure, a good understanding of how a commercial drone is put together certainly helps any drone enthusiast appreciate his or her kite better and who knows, it might come in handy for troubleshooting and repair when a fault develops.

Anyway, it's too early to know how the chapter will go. Hopefully, it will be worth my time to write and for my readers to read.

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