Some while ago, I came across a query in Reddit regarding my books:
There are a few books on Amazon authored by Mr. Keng Tiong Ng that cover the topic of reverse engineering PCBs. Anyone in the know find them useful?
Here's one reply:
They're an enjoyable read, but nothing exactly earth-shattering...
Well, any hacker—hardware or software—would tell you in the face, there's no shortcut to doing reverse engineering. Those in the engineering industry know that the work of an engineer is never easy, right from the start when you take up this field of study to the day you learn and master the trade and become good at what you do. Temple Grandin puts it succinctly when he said:
People are always looking for the single magic bullet that will totally change everything. There is no single magic bullet.
PCB-RE is no exception. In my 15 years of reversing PCBs and electronic modules as part of doing repair and diagnosis of circuit boards, I had to literally 'bite the bullet' and refused to call it quit if ever the schematic diagrams were to materialize in the end. Of course, knowing the techniques of doing PCB-RE and the kind of tools available to ease the process will be a great help to reduce the learning curve and become proficient quickly. Which is why one reader, a 65-year old retired engineer, commented:
Books on this topic are as rare as hens teeth.The first book The Art of PCB Reverse Engineering was mainly about RE techniques and ways to keep the extracted data organized. It was really well written and an enjoyable read. The sequel PCB-RE book is about the tools (hardware and software) that can be made or purchased to ease the RE process. Again it was really well written and a good read. I've been doing RE for years mainly to help in the repair undocumented products and yet I still found some very useful stuff in these two books. The reader should be aware that RE takes a lot of time and no book is going to be a magic bullet that will give instant results. However learning to be organized and to correctly document the results can be learned from these books and that means you get to waste less time. You can also reuse and expand a well documented partial RE when tackling a different fault on the same product. Have no fear of Mr Ng's English; it is really good.That said, there IS only one 'magic bullet' but do you have the courage to bite it? Here it is...
One thing the person who replied is right though—my books are an enjoyable read. And if I may add, they're also informative and worth your time and money for all the heart and sweat I put into writing them, including the contributions of fellow engineers who shared their expertise and valuable experiences.
