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

Thursday, February 17, 2022

Progress Update

The start of a new year has always been busy with tight schedules, more so with the constant changes in government policies over the evolving pandemic situation. Thankfully, after a hectic Lunar New Year saga, I am able to sit down once again and resume writing.

Finally, completed Chapter 3: Elements of Digital Circuits for my book, Deciphering Schematics. Here is the Summary page at the chapter's end:

I've outlined nine chapters plus several appendices for this book, so at 100 pages currently, I foresee it will probably run up to 250 pages or more when it's completed. I still have the other book, PCB Diagnostics, at the back of my mind but somehow I don't seem to have the motivation to work on it, yet.

Again, this year being the seventh and likely final year for me in book writing as an author, I do hope to at least finish one of them before I call it quit. If I can write both, that will be a bonus for my readers. That will be six engineering books in total, which accounts for about 60% of my knowledge and experience. I don't foresee that I will go beyond that, unless there are very good reasons to. Still, I'm thankful to my wife for her patient support and belief in my hard work.

That's all for now. Stay safe and well, my friends.

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