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, November 5, 2019

Manual PCB-RE: Instrumentation

Setting up an electronic lab like a commercial repair house is certainly out of the question,unless you're prepared to fork out a fortune to do so. But if you're thinking of doing PCB-RE manually, all you really need are just a couple of basic inexpensive equipment:
  • Digital Multimeter (DMM)
  • SMD LCR Meter
  • Power Supply
  • Universal Device Programmer
  • Multi-Protocol Adapter

Most engineers should be well acquainted with the first three; the last two are not really for novice but can come in handy if you want to delve deeper and get a better understanding into the workings of a board.

Digital Multimeter (DMM)

The DMM is perhaps the most basic measuring instrument an engineer or technician will ever get to learn and use at work. Increasingly, digital multimeters are preferred over analog ones for their accuracy, functions and ease of operation, since they come with a numerical display that provides quick reading of the electrical entities being measured.

Choosing a DMM would seem like a no brainer but there are subtle yet important differences that separate a good model from an average one. Besides quality and reliability, resolution and accuracy are two primary factors that should not be overlooked. Though we're not particularly concerned with these traits when it comes to doing PCB-RE, it is imperative to get a DMM that has fast continuity test response.

This feature becomes apparent when you need to do a sweep on rows of connector pins to get a connectivity detection beep, so a slow response will potentially miss probe points that have valid connections. So invest in a good DMM to save yourself from this stigma.

SMD LCR Meter

Surface-mounted components are becoming popular with board designers due to the small sizes and space economy they afford. Some of these devices are so miniature there is hardly space for part numbers or even abbreviated values to be printed on them. Using the probes of a DMM to measure these devices can be challenging and frustrating. Enter the SMD LCR meter.


This remarkable and portable one-hand operated instrument identifies both marked and unmarked SMD-components with easy probing, passive or through-hole. A standard model can measure capacitance, inductance and resistance with speed and precision. Advance model can even check secondary parameters such as the capacitor's ESR, quality factor (Q),
dissipation factor (D) and impedance (Z).

SMD LCR meters come in different makes and functions. Those providing only basic functions may cost just between $20-$50 apiece, whereas more advanced models can run into $150-$300 an unit.

Power Supply

You have two choices when it comes to power supply: fixed and adjustable. Depending on what you intend to use with the power sources, you can opt for:
  • Fixed power supplies with common voltages such as +5V, +12V, +3.3V, etc. which many PCBs require. A PC power supply unit will be adequate to provide these multiple outputs. But a note of caution: you will need to provide some kind of safety measures to ensure you don't fry the PCBs you're working on.
  • Adjustable power supplies. These benchtop equipment are more costly but still affordable, and they provide built-in current limiting and over-voltage protections, plus you get to have a variable range of voltages at your disposal.

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)